Methods and systems for optimal and adaptive urban scanning using self-organized fleets of autonomous vehicles

ABSTRACT

Methods and systems are provided for optimal and adaptive urban scanning using self-organized fleets of autonomous vehicles. A mobile access point (MAP) may obtain, while operating within a communication network comprising one or more mobile access points (MAPs) and one or more fixed access points (FAPs), sensory information relating to an infrastructure utilized by the MAPs. The MAP may store the sensory information, may determine when access to a central entity, configured for managing the infrastructure and/or the communication network, is available via at least one fixed access point (FAP), and when access to the central entity is available, communicate the obtained sensory information. The MAP may include on-board sensors for directly obtaining at least some of the sensory information. The MAP may obtain at least some of the sensory information from fixed sensors deployed within or near the infrastructure. The MAP may comprise an autonomous vehicle (AV).

CLAIM OF PRIORITY

This patent application makes reference to, claims priority to andclaims benefit from U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No.62/550,116, filed on Aug. 25, 2017. The above identified application ishereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This patent application also makes reference to:

-   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/133,756, filed on Apr. 20, 2016,    and entitled “Communication Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/132,867, filed on Apr. 19, 2016,    and entitled “Integrated Communication Network for a Network of    Moving Things;”-   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/138,370, filed on Apr. 26, 2016,    and titled, “Systems and Methods for Remote Configuration Update and    Distribution in a Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/157,887, filed on May 18, 2016,    and entitled “Systems and Methods for Remote Software Update and    Distribution in a Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/228,613, filed on Aug. 4, 2016,    and entitled “Systems and Methods for Environmental Management in a    Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/213,269, filed on Jul. 18, 2016,    and entitled “Systems and Methods for Collecting Sensor Data in a    Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/215,905, filed on Aug. 4, 2016,    and entitled “Systems and Methods for Environmental Management in a    Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/245,992, filed on Aug. 24, 2016,    and entitled “Systems and Methods for Shipping Management in a    Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/337,856, filed on Oct. 28, 2016,    and entitled “Systems and Methods for Optimizing Data Gathering in a    Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/351,811, filed on Nov. 15, 2016,    and entitled “Systems and Methods to Extrapolate High-Value Data    from a Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/353,966, filed on Nov. 17, 2016,    and entitled “Systems and Methods for Delay Tolerant Networking in a    Network of Moving Things, for Example Including a Network of    Autonomous Vehicles;”-   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/414,978, filed on Jan. 25, 2017,    and entitled “Systems and Methods for Managing Digital Advertising    Campaigns in a Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/451,696, filed on Mar. 7, 2017,    and entitled “Systems and Methods for Managing Mobility in a Network    of Moving Things;”-   U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/428,085, filed on Feb. 8, 2017,    and entitled “Systems and Methods for Managing Vehicle OBD Data in a    Network of Moving Things, for Example Including Autonomous Vehicle    Data;”-   U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/336,891, filed on    May 16, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods for Vehicular    Positioning Based on Message Round-Trip Times in a Network of Moving    Things;”-   U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/350,814, filed on    Jun. 16, 2016, and entitled “System and Methods for Managing    Contains in a Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/360,592, filed on    Jul. 11, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods for Vehicular    Positioning Based on Wireless Fingerprinting Data in a Network of    Moving Things;”-   U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/376,937, filed on    Aug. 19, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods to Improve    Multimedia Content Distribution in a Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/376,955, filed on    Aug. 19, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods for Reliable    Software Update in a Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/377,350, filed on    Aug. 19, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods for Flexible    Software Update in a Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/378,269, filed on    Aug. 23, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods for Flexible    Software Update in a Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/415,196, filed on    Oct. 31, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Method for Achieving Action    Consensus Among a Set of Nodes in a Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/415,268, filed on    Oct. 31, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods to Deploy and    Control a Node in a Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/417,705, filed on    Nov. 4, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods for the User-Centric    Calculation of the Service Quality of a Transportation Fleet in a    Network of Moving Things;”-   U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/429,410, filed on    Dec. 2, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods for Improving    Content Distribution for Fleets of Vehicles, Including for Example    Autonomous Vehicles, By Using Smart Supply Stations;” and-   U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62,449,394, filed on    Jan. 23, 2017, and entitled “Systems and Methods for Utilizing    Mobile Access Points as Fixed Access Points in a Network of Moving    Things, for Example Including Autonomous Vehicles.”

Each of the above identified applications is hereby incorporated hereinby reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

Current communication networks are unable to adequately supportcommunication environments involving mobile and static nodes. As anon-limiting example, current communication networks are unable toadequately support communication among and with autonomous vehicles of anetwork of autonomous vehicles.

Limitations and disadvantages of conventional methods and systems willbecome apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of suchapproaches with some aspects of the present methods and systems setforth in the remainder of this disclosure with reference to thedrawings.

BRIEF SUMMARY

Various aspects of this disclosure provide systems and methods forsupporting a network of autonomous vehicles. As a non-limiting example,various aspects of this disclosure provide systems and methods forsupporting a dynamically configurable network of autonomous vehiclescomprising a complex array of both static and moving communication nodes(e.g., the Internet of moving things, autonomous vehicle networks,etc.). For example, a network of autonomous vehicles implemented inaccordance with various aspects of the present disclosure may operate inone of a plurality of modalities comprising various fixed nodes, mobilenodes, and/or a combination thereof, which are selectable to achieve anyof a variety of system goals. In various example implementations inaccordance with the present disclosure, autonomous vehicles may beutilized in detecting anomalies and forecasting optimizations, such asto improve urban living management.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a communication network, in accordancewith various aspects of this disclosure.

FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of a communication network, in accordancewith various aspects of this disclosure.

FIG. 3 shows a diagram of a metropolitan area network, in accordancewith various aspects of this disclosure.

FIG. 4 shows a block diagram of a communication network, in accordancewith various aspects of this disclosure.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram that illustrates an example architecture of asystem that may reside in an autonomous (AV) operating in a network ofmoving things, in accordance with various aspects of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating how the functional blocks of anAV system interact with one another during an example flow ofinformation involving an AV system of an autonomous vehicle, a neighborautonomous vehicle, a fixed access point, and a Cloud accessible via theInternet, in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating an example autonomous vehicle(AV) based network that supports optimal and adaptive urban scanningusing self-organized fleets of autonomous vehicles (AVs), in accordancewith various aspects of the present disclosure.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating an example road topologygenerated in an autonomous vehicle (AV) based network that supportsoptimal and adaptive urban scanning using self-organized fleets ofautonomous vehicles (AVs), in accordance with various aspects of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 9 is a flow chart illustrating an example process for routecalculation based on optimal and adaptive urban scanning usingself-organized fleets of autonomous vehicles (AVs), in accordance withvarious aspects of the present disclosure.

FIG. 10 is a flow chart illustrating example interactions between avehicle and fixed components of an autonomous vehicle (AV) based networkthat supports optimal and adaptive urban scanning using self-organizedfleets of autonomous vehicles (AVs), in accordance with various aspectsof the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DISCLOSURE

As utilized herein the terms “circuits” and “circuitry” refer tophysical electronic components (e.g., hardware), and any software and/orfirmware (“code”) that may configure the hardware, be executed by thehardware, and or otherwise be associated with the hardware. As usedherein, for example, a particular processor and memory (e.g., a volatileor non-volatile memory device, a general computer-readable medium, etc.)may comprise a first “circuit” when executing a first one or more linesof code and may comprise a second “circuit” when executing a second oneor more lines of code. Additionally, a circuit may comprise analogand/or digital circuitry. Such circuitry may, for example, operate onanalog and/or digital signals. It should be understood that a circuitmay be in a single device or chip, on a single motherboard, in a singlechassis, in a plurality of enclosures at a single geographical location,in a plurality of enclosures distributed over a plurality ofgeographical locations, etc. Similarly, the term “module” may, forexample, refer to a physical electronic components (e.g., hardware) andany software and/or firmware (“code”) that may configure the hardware,be executed by the hardware, and or otherwise be associated with thehardware.

As utilized herein, circuitry or module is “operable” to perform afunction whenever the circuitry or module comprises the necessaryhardware and code (if any is necessary) to perform the function,regardless of whether performance of the function is disabled or notenabled (e.g., by a user-configurable setting, factory trim, etc.).

As utilized herein, “and/or” means any one or more of the items in thelist joined by “and/or”. As an example, “x and/or y” means any elementof the three-element set {(x), (y), (x, y)}. In other words, “x and/ory” means “one or both of x and y.” As another example, “x, y, and/or z”means any element of the seven-element set {(x), (y), (z), (x, y), (x,z), (y, z), (x, y, z)}. In other words, “x, y and/or z” means “one ormore of x, y, and z.” As utilized herein, the term “exemplary” meansserving as a non-limiting example, instance, or illustration. Asutilized herein, the terms “for example” and “e.g.” set off lists of oneor more non-limiting examples, instances, or illustrations.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particularexamples only and is not intended to be limiting of the disclosure. Asused herein, the singular forms are intended to include the plural formsas well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will befurther understood that the terms “comprises,” “includes,” “comprising,”“including,” “has,” “have,” “having,” and the like when used in thisspecification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps,operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude thepresence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps,operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.

It will be understood that, although the terms first, second, etc. maybe used herein to describe various elements, these elements should notbe limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish oneelement from another element. Thus, for example, a first element, afirst component or a first section discussed below could be termed asecond element, a second component or a second section without departingfrom the teachings of the present disclosure. Similarly, various spatialterms, such as “upper,” “lower,” “side,” and the like, may be used indistinguishing one element from another element in a relative manner. Itshould be understood, however, that components may be oriented indifferent manners, for example an electronic device may be turnedsideways so that its “top” surface is facing horizontally and its “side”surface is facing vertically, without departing from the teachings ofthe present disclosure.

With the proliferation of the mobile and/or static things (e.g.,devices, machines, people, etc.) and logistics for such things to becomeconnected to each other (e.g., in the contexts of smart logistics,transportation, environmental sensing, etc.), a platform that is forexample always-on, robust, scalable and secure that is capable ofproviding connectivity, services and Internet access to such things (orobjects), anywhere and anytime is desirable. Efficient power utilizationwithin the various components of such system is also desirable.

Accordingly, various aspects of the present disclosure provide afully-operable, always-on, responsive, robust, scalable, secureplatform/system/architecture to provide connectivity, services andInternet access to all mobile things and/or static things (e.g.,devices, machines, people, access points, end user devices, sensors,etc.) anywhere and anytime, while operating in an energy-efficientmanner.

Various aspects of the present disclosure provide a platform that isflexibly configurable and adaptable to the various requirements,features, and needs of different environments, where each environmentmay be characterized by a respective level of mobility and density ofmobile and/or static things, and the number and/or types of access tothose things. Characteristics of various environments may, for example,include high mobility of nodes (e.g., causing contacts or connections tobe volatile), high number of neighbors, high number of connected mobileusers, mobile access points, availability of multiple networks andtechnologies (e.g., sometimes within a same area), etc. For example, themode of operation of the platform may be flexibly adapted fromenvironment to environment, based on each environment's respectiverequirements and needs, which may be different from other environments.Additionally for example, the platform may be flexibly optimized (e.g.,at design/installation time and/or in real-time) for different purposes(e.g., to reduce the latency, increase throughput, reduce powerconsumption, load balance, increase reliability, make more robust withregard to failures or other disturbances, etc.), for example based onthe content, service or data that the platform provides or handleswithin a particular environment.

Various example implementations of a platform, in accordance withvarious aspects of the present disclosure, are capable of connectingdifferent subsystems, even when various other subsystems that maynormally be utilized are unavailable. For example, the platform maycomprise various built-in redundancies and fail-recovery mechanisms. Forexample, the platform may comprise a self-healing capability,self-configuration capability, self-adaptation capability, etc. Theprotocols and functions of the platform may, for example, be prepared tobe autonomously and smoothly configured and adapted to the requirementsand features of different environments characterized by different levelsof mobility and density of things (or objects), the number/types ofaccess to those things. For example, various aspects of the platform maygather context parameters that can influence any or all decisions. Suchparameters may, for example, be derived locally, gathered from aneighborhood, Fixed APs, the Cloud, etc. Various aspects of the platformmay also, for example, ask for historical information to feed any of thedecisions, where such information can be derived from historical data,from surveys, from simulators, etc. Various aspects of the platform mayadditionally, for example, probe or monitor decisions made throughoutthe network, for example to evaluate the network and/or the decisionsthemselves in real-time. Various aspects of the platform may further,for example, enforce the decisions in the network (e.g., afterevaluating the probing results). Various aspects of the platform may,for example, establish thresholds to avoid any decision that is to beconstantly or repeatedly performed without any significant advantage(e.g., technology change, certificate change, IP change, etc.). Variousaspects of the platform may also, for example, learn locally (e.g., withthe decisions performed) and dynamically update the decisions.

In addition to (or instead of) failure robustness, a platform mayutilize multiple connections (or pathways) that exist between distinctsub-systems or elements within the same sub-system, to increase therobustness and/or load-balancing of the system.

The following discussion will present examples of the functionalityperformed by various example subsystems of the communication network. Itshould be understood that the example functionality discussed hereinneed not be performed by the particular example subsystem or by a singlesubsystem. For example, the subsystems present herein may interact witheach other, and data or control services may be deployed either in acentralized way, or having their functionalities distributed among thedifferent subsystems, for example leveraging the cooperation between theelements of each subsystem.

Various aspects of the present disclosure provide a communicationnetwork (e.g., a city-wide vehicular network, a shipping port-sizedvehicular network, a campus-wide vehicular network, etc.) that utilizesvehicles (e.g., automobiles, buses, trucks, boats, forklifts,human-operated vehicles, autonomous and/or remote controlled vehicles,etc.) as Wi-Fi hotspots. Note that Wi-Fi is generally used throughoutthis discussion as an example, but the scope of various aspects of thisdisclosure is not limited thereto. For example, other wireless LANtechnologies, PAN technologies, MAN technologies, etc., may be utilized.Such utilization may, for example, provide cost-effective ways to gathersubstantial amounts of urban data, and provide for the efficientoffloading of traffic from congested cellular networks (or othernetworks). In controlled areas (e.g., ports, harbors, etc.) with manyvehicles, a communication network in accordance with various aspects ofthis disclosure may expand the wireless coverage of existing enterpriseWi-Fi networks, for example providing for real-time communication withvehicle drivers (e.g., human, computer-controlled, etc.) and othermobile employees without the need for SIM cards or cellular (or othernetwork) data plans.

In accordance with various aspects of the present disclosure, anaffordable multi-network Mobile Access Point (or Mobile AP or MAP) ispresented. Note that the Mobile AP may also be referred to herein as anon-board unit (OBU), etc. The Mobile AP may, for example, comprise aplurality of networking interfaces (e.g., Wi-Fi, 802.11p, 4G, Bluetooth,UWB, etc.). The Mobile AP may, for example, be readily installed in oron private and/or public vehicles (e.g., individual user vehicles,vehicles of private fleets, vehicles of public fleets, autonomousvehicles, etc.). The Mobile AP may, for example, be installed intransportation fleets, waste management fleets, law enforcement fleets,emergency services, road maintenance fleets, taxi fleets, aircraftfleets, etc. The Mobile AP may, for example, be installed in or on avehicle or other structure with free mobility or relatively limitedmobility. The Mobile AP may also, for example, be carried by a person orservice animal, mounted to a bicycle, mounted to a moving machine ingeneral, mounted to a container, etc.

The Mobile APs may, for example, operate to connect passing vehicles tothe wired infrastructure of one or more network providers, telecomoperators, etc. In accordance with the architecture, hardware, andsoftware functionality discussed herein, vehicles and fleets can beconnected not just to the cellular networks (or other wide area ormetropolitan area networks, etc.) and existing Wi-Fi hotspots spreadover a city or a controlled space, but also to other vehicles (e.g.,utilizing multi-hop communications to a wired infrastructure, single ormulti-hop peer-to-peer vehicle communication, etc.). The vehicles and/orfleets may, for example, form an overall mesh of communication links,for example including the Mobile APs and also Fixed Access Points (orFixed APs or FAPs) connected to the wired or tethered infrastructure(e.g., a local infrastructure, etc.). Note that Fixed APs may also bereferred to herein as Road Side Units (RSUs).

In an example implementation, the Mobile APs may communicate with theFixed APs utilizing a relatively long-range protocol (e.g., 802.11p,etc.), and the Fixed APs may, in turn, be hard wired to the wiredinfrastructure (e.g., via cable, tethered optical link, etc.). Note thatFixed APs may also, or alternatively, be coupled to the infrastructurevia wireless link (e.g., 802.11p, etc.). Additionally, clients or userdevices may communicate with the Mobile APs using one or more relativelyshort-range protocols (e.g., Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, UWB, etc.). The MobileAPs, for example having a longer effective wireless communication rangethan typical Wi-Fi access points or other wireless LAN/PAN access points(e.g., at least for links such as those based on 802.11p, etc.), arecapable of substantially greater coverage areas than typical Wi-Fi orother wireless LAN/PAN access points, and thus fewer Mobile APs arenecessary to provide blanket coverage over a geographical area.

The Mobile AP may, for example, comprise a robust vehicular networkingmodule (e.g., a connection manager) which builds on long-rangecommunication protocol capability (e.g., 802.11p, etc.). For example, inaddition to comprising 802.11p (or other long-range protocol) capabilityto communicate with Fixed APs, vehicles, and other nodes in the network,the Mobile AP may comprise a network interface (e.g., 802.11a/b/g/n,802.11ac, 802.11af, any combination thereof, etc.) to provide wirelesslocal area network (WLAN) connectivity to end user devices, sensors,fixed Wi-Fi access points, etc. For example, the Mobile AP may operateto provide in-vehicle Wi-Fi Internet access to users in and/or aroundthe vehicle (e.g., a bus, train car, taxi cab, public works vehicle,etc.). The Mobile AP may further comprise one or more wireless backbonecommunication interfaces (e.g., cellular network interfaces, etc.).Though in various example scenarios, a cellular network interface (orother wireless backbone communication interface) might not be thepreferred interface for various reasons (e.g., cost, power, bandwidth,etc.), the Mobile AP may utilize the cellular network interface toprovide connectivity in geographical areas that are not presentlysupported by a Fixed AP, may utilize the cellular network interface toprovide a fail-over communication link, may utilize the cellular networkinterface for emergency communications, may utilize the cellular networkinterface to subscribe to local infrastructure access, etc. The MobileAP may also utilize the cellular network interface to allow thedeployment of solutions that are dependent on the cellular networkoperators.

A Mobile AP, in accordance with various aspects of the presentdisclosure, may for example comprise a smart connection manager that canselect the best available wireless link(s) (e.g., Wi-Fi, 802.11p,cellular, vehicle mesh, etc.) with which to access the Internet. TheMobile AP may also, for example, provide geo-location capabilities(e.g., GPS, etc.), motion detection sensors to determine if the vehicleis in motion, and a power control subsystem (e.g., to ensure that theMobile AP does not deplete the vehicle battery, etc.). The Mobile APmay, for example, comprise any or all of the sensors (e.g.,environmental sensors, etc.) discussed herein.

The Mobile AP may, for example, comprise a connection and/or routingmanager that operates to perform routing of communications in avehicle-to-vehicle/vehicle-to-infrastructure multi-hop communication. Amobility manager (or controller, MC) may, for example, ensure thatcommunication sessions persist over one or more handoff(s) (alsoreferred to herein as a “handover” or “handovers”) (e.g., betweendifferent Mobile APs, Fixed APs, base stations, hot spots, etc.), amongdifferent technologies (e.g., 802.11p, cellular, Wi-Fi, satellite,etc.), among different MCs (e.g., in a fail-over scenario, loadredistribution scenario, etc.), across different interfaces (or ports),etc. Note that the MC may also be referred to herein as a Local MobilityAnchor (LMA), a Network Controller, etc. Note that the MC, or aplurality thereof, may for example be implemented as part of thebackbone, but may also, or alternatively, be implemented as part of anyof a variety of components or combinations thereof. For example, the MCmay be implemented in a Fixed AP (or distributed system thereof), aspart of a Mobile AP (or a distributed system thereof), etc.

For example, an example implementation may operate to turn each vehicle(e.g., both public and private taxis, buses, trucks, autonomousvehicles, etc.) into a Mobile AP (e.g., a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot),offering Internet access to employees, passengers and mobile userstravelling in the city, waiting in bus stops, sitting in parks, etc.Moreover, through an example vehicular mesh network formed betweenvehicles and/or fleets of vehicles, an implementation may be operable tooffload cellular traffic through the mobile Wi-Fi hotspots and/or FixedAPs (e.g., 802.11p-based APs) spread over the city and connected to thewired infrastructure of public or private telecom operators in strategicplaces, while ensuring the widest possible coverage at the lowestpossible cost.

An example implementation (e.g., of a communication network and/orcomponents thereof) may, for example, be operable as a massive urbanscanner that gathers large amounts of data (e.g., continuously)on-the-move, actionable or not, generated by a myriad of sourcesspanning from the in-vehicle sensors or On Board Diagnostic System port(e.g., OBD2, etc.), interface with an autonomous vehicle driving system,external Wi-Fi/Bluetooth-enabled sensing units spread over the city,devices of vehicles' drivers and passengers (e.g., informationcharacterizing such devices and/or passengers, etc.), positioning systemdevices (e.g., position information, velocity information, trajectoryinformation, travel history information, etc.), etc.

In an example scenario in which public buses are moving along cityroutes and/or taxis are performing their private transportationservices, the Mobile AP is able to collect large quantities of real-timedata from the positioning systems (e.g., GPS, etc.), from accelerometermodules, etc. The Mobile AP may then, for example, communicate such data(e.g., raw data, processed data, etc.) to the Cloud, where the data maybe processed, reported and viewed, for example to support such public orprivate bus and/or taxi operations, for example supporting efficientremote monitoring and scheduling of buses and taxis, respectively.

A Mobile AP may, for example, be operable to communicate with any of avariety of Wi-Fi-enabled sensor devices equipped with a heterogeneouscollection of environmental sensors. Such sensors may, for example,comprise noise sensors (microphones, etc.), gas sensors (e.g., sensingCO, NO₂, O₃, volatile organic compounds (or VOCs), CO₂, etc.), smokesensors, pollution sensors, meteorological sensors (e.g., sensingtemperature, humidity, luminosity, particles, solar radiation, windspeed (e.g., anemometer), wind direction, rain (e.g., a pluviometer),optical scanners, biometric scanners, cameras, microphones, etc.). Suchsensors may also comprise sensors associated with users (e.g., vehicleoperators or passengers, passersby, etc.) and/or their personal devices(e.g., smart phones or watches, biometrics sensors, wearable sensors,implanted sensors, etc.). Such sensors may, for example, comprisesensors and/or systems associated with on-board diagnostic (OBD) unitsfor vehicles, autonomous vehicle driving systems, etc. Such sensors may,for example, comprise positioning sensors (e.g., GPS sensors, Galileosensors, GLONASS sensors, etc.). Note that such positioning sensors maybe part of a vehicle's operational system (e.g., a localhuman-controlled vehicle, an autonomous vehicle, a remotehuman-controlled vehicle, etc.) Such sensors may, for example, comprisecontainer sensors (e.g., garbage can sensors, shipping containersensors, container environmental sensors, container tracking sensors,etc.).

Once a vehicle enters the vicinity of such a sensor device, a wirelesslink may be established, so that the vehicle (or Mobile AP or OBUthereof) can collect sensor data from the sensor device and upload thecollected data to a database in the Cloud. The appropriate action canthen be taken. In an example waste management implementation, severalwaste management (or collection) trucks may be equipped with Mobile APsthat are able to periodically communicate with sensors installed oncontainers in order to gather information about waste level, time passedsince last collection, etc. Such information may then sent to the Cloud(e.g., to a waste management application coupled to the Internet, etc.)through the vehicular mesh network, in order to improve the schedulingand/or routing of waste management trucks. Note that various sensors mayalways be in range of the Mobile AP (e.g., vehicle-mounted sensors).Note that the sensor may also (or alternatively) be mobile (e.g., asensor mounted to another vehicle passing by a Mobile AP or Fixed AP, adrone-mounted sensor, a pedestrian-mounted sensor, etc.).

For example, in an example port and/or harbor implementation, bygathering real-time information on the position, speed, fuel consumptionand CO₂ emissions of the vehicles, the communication network allows aport operator to improve the coordination of the ship loading processesand increase the throughput of the harbor. Also for example, thecommunication network enables remote monitoring of drivers' behaviors,behaviors of autonomous vehicles and/or control systems thereof, trucks'positions and engines' status, and then be able to provide real-timenotifications to drivers (e.g., to turn on/off the engine, follow theright route inside the harbor, take a break, etc.), for example humandrivers and/or automated vehicle driving systems, thus reducing thenumber and duration of the harbor services and trips. Harbor authoritiesmay, for example, quickly detect malfunctioning trucks and abnormaltrucks' circulation, thus avoiding accidents in order to increase harborefficiency, security, and safety. Additionally, the vehicles can alsoconnect to Wi-Fi access points from harbor local operators, and provideWi-Fi Internet access to vehicles' occupants and surrounding harboremployees, for example allowing pilots to save time by filing reportsvia the Internet while still on the water.

An example system for supporting urban scanning in a communicationnetwork comprising one or more mobile access points (MAPs) and one ormore fixed access points (FAPs), in accordance with the presentdisclosure, may be implemented in a mobile access point (MAP), with thesystem comprising at least one processing circuit, one or more storagecircuits configured for storing of instructions and data, and one ormore communication circuits configured for communication of signals fortransmission and reception of data. During urban scanning, the mobileaccess point (MAP) may obtain during operations in an infrastructureutilized by the one or more mobile access points (MAPs), sensoryinformation, and may store the sensory information. The mobile accesspoint (MAP) may determine when access to a central entity in thecommunication network, configured for managing the infrastructure and/orthe communication network, is available via at least one fixed accesspoint (FAP), and when access to the central entity is available,communicate via the at least one fixed access point (FAP), the obtainedsensory information and/or information relating to the obtained sensoryinformation.

In an example implementation, the mobile access point (MAP) may receivean acknowledgement from the central entity indicating successfulreception by the central entity of the sensory information and/orinformation relating to the sensory information, and may, in response toreception of the acknowledgement, discard or delete the stored sensoryinformation.

In an example implementation, the mobile access point (MAP) may obtainfrom the central entity updated information relating to operation of theone mobile access point (MAP), where the updated information isconfigured based on the sensory information and/or information relatingto the obtained sensory information.

In an example implementation, the updated information may compriserouting related information, and the mobile access point (MAP), may,when the updated information comprises the routing related information,adjust routing related functions and/or operations based on the routingrelated information.

In an example implementation, the mobile access point (MAP) may compriseone or more sensors for directly obtaining at least some of the sensoryinformation.

In an example implementation, the mobile access point (MAP) may obtainat least some of the sensory information from fixed one or more sensorsdeployed within or near the infrastructure.

In an example implementation, the mobile access point (MAP) may comprisean autonomous vehicle (AV).

An example system for supporting urban scanning in a communicationnetwork comprising one or more mobile access points (MAPs) and one ormore fixed access points (FAPs), in accordance with the presentdisclosure, may be implemented in a central entity in the communicationnetwork, with the system comprising at least one processing circuit, oneor more storage circuits configured for storing of instructions anddata, and one or more communication circuits configured forcommunication of signals for transmission and reception of data. Duringurban scanning, the one or communication circuits may receive signalsform at least one mobile access point (MAP), with the signals beingcommunicated via at least one fixed access points (FAP). At least oneprocessing circuit may extract from the signals, sensory informationrelating to infrastructure utilized by the one or more mobile accesspoints (MAPs), where the sensory information is obtained by the at leastone mobile access point (MAP), process the sensory information, and setor adjust, based on the processing of the sensory information,information relating to infrastructure and/or operation relating to theinfrastructure.

In an example implementation, the one or communication circuits may sendto the at least one mobile access point (MAP), an acknowledgementindicating successful reception of the sensory information.

In an example implementation, the at least one processing circuit mayadjust, based on the processing of the sensory information, parametersrelating to or affecting operation of the at least one mobile accesspoint (MAP).

In an example implementation, the at least one processing circuit maygenerate based on the processing of the sensory information, updatedinformation relating to or affecting operation of the at least onemobile access point (MAP). The one or communication circuits may thensend the updated information to the at least one mobile access point(MAP).

An example method for supporting urban scanning in an communicationnetwork comprising one or more mobile access points (MAPs) and one ormore fixed access points (FAPs), in accordance with the presentdisclosure, may comprise obtaining, by at least one mobile access point(MAP) during operations in an infrastructure utilized by the one or moremobile access points (MAPs), sensory information; storing the sensoryinformation with the mobile access point (MAP); determining by themobile access point (MAP) when access to a central entity in thecommunication network, configured for managing the infrastructure and/orthe communication network, is available via at least one fixed accesspoint (FAP); and when access to the central entity is available,communicating via the at least one fixed access point (FAP), theobtained sensory information and/or information relating to the obtainedsensory information.

In an example implementation, the method may further comprise processingin the central entity the sensory information, and setting or adjusting,based on the processing of the sensory information, information relatingto infrastructure and/or operation relating to the infrastructure.

In an example implementation, the method may further comprise setting oradjusting by the central entity and based on the processing of thesensory information, parameters relating to or affecting operation ofthe mobile access point (MAP).

In an example implementation, the method may further comprise receiving,by the mobile access point (MAP) from the central entity, anacknowledgement indicating successful reception of the communicatedsensory information and/or information relating to the communicatedsensory information, with the mobile access point (MAP), in response toreception of the acknowledgement, discarding or deleting the storedsensory information.

In an example implementation, the method may further comprise receiving,by the mobile access point (MAP) from the central entity, updatedinformation relating to operation of the mobile access point (MAP), withthe updated information being generated or configured based on thesensory information and/or processing thereof in the central entity.

In an example implementation, the updated information may compriserouting related information, and the mobile access point (MAP) mayadjust routing related functions or operations based on the routingrelated information.

In an example implementation, the method may further comprise obtainingat least some of the sensory information directly by the mobile accesspoint (MAP).

In an example implementation, the method may further comprise obtainingat least some of the sensory information from one or more sensorsdeployed within or near the infrastructure.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a communication network 100, inaccordance with various aspects of this disclosure. Any or all of thefunctionality discussed herein may be performed by any or all of theexample components of the example network 100. Also, the example network100 may, for example, share any or all characteristics with the otherexample methods, systems, networks and/or network components 200, 300,400, 500, and 600, discussed herein.

The example network 100, for example, comprises a Cloud that may, forexample comprise any of a variety of network level components. The Cloudmay, for example, comprise any of a variety of server systems executingapplications that monitor and/or control components of the network 100.Such applications may also, for example, manage the collection ofinformation from any of a large array of networked information sources,many examples of which are discussed herein. The Cloud (or a portionthereof) may also be referred to, at times, as an API. For example,Cloud (or a portion thereof) may provide one or more applicationprogramming interfaces (APIs) which other devices may use forcommunicating/interacting with the Cloud.

An example component of the Cloud may, for example, manageinteroperability with various multi-Cloud systems and architectures.Another example component (e.g., a Cloud service component) may, forexample, provide various Cloud services (e.g., captive portal services,authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) services, APIGateway services, etc.). An additional example component (e.g., aDevCenter component) may, for example, provide network monitoring and/ormanagement functionality, manage the implementation of software updates,etc. A further example component of the Cloud may manage data storage,data analytics, data access, etc. A still further example component ofthe Cloud may include any of a variety of third-partly applications andservices.

The Cloud may, for example, be coupled to the Backbone/CoreInfrastructure of the example network 100 via the Internet (e.g.,utilizing one or more Internet Service Providers). Though the Internetis provided by example, it should be understood that scope of thepresent disclosure is not limited thereto.

The Backbone/Core may, for example, comprise any one or more differentcommunication infrastructure components. For example, one or moreproviders may provide backbone networks or various components thereof.As shown in the example network 100 illustrated in FIG. 1, a Backboneprovider may provide wireline access (e.g., PSTN, fiber, cable, etc.).Also for example, a Backbone provider may provide wireless access (e.g.,Microwave, LTE/Cellular, 5G/TV Spectrum, etc.).

The Backbone/Core may also, for example, comprise one or more LocalInfrastructure Providers. The Backbone/Core may also, for example,comprise a private infrastructure (e.g., run by the network 100implementer, owner, etc.). The Backbone/Core may, for example, provideany of a variety of Backbone Services (e.g., AAA, Mobility, Monitoring,Addressing, Routing, Content services, Gateway Control services, etc.).

The Backbone/Core Infrastructure may, for example, support differentmodes of operation (e.g., L2 in port implementations, L3 in on-landpublic transportation implementations, utilizing any one or more of aplurality of different layers of digital IP networking, any combinationsthereof, equivalents thereof, etc.) or addressing pools. TheBackbone/Core may also for example, be agnostic to the Cloud provider(s)and/or Internet Service Provider(s). Additionally for example, theBackbone/Core may be agnostic to requests coming from any or allsubsystems or notes of the network 100. The Backbone/Core Infrastructuremay, for example, comprise the ability to utilize and/or interface withdifferent data storage/processing systems (e.g., MongoDB, MySql, Redis,etc.).

The example network 100 may also, for example, comprise a Fixed HotspotAccess Network. Various example characteristics of such a Fixed HotspotAccess Network 200 are shown at FIG. 2. The example network 200 may, forexample, share any or all characteristics with the other examplemethods, systems, networks and/or network components 100, 300, 400, 500,and 600, discussed herein.

In the example network 200, the Fixed APs (e.g., the proprietary APs,the public third party APs, the private third party APs, etc.) may bedirectly connected to the local infrastructure provider and/or to thewireline/wireless backbone. Also for example, the example network 200may comprise a mesh between the various APs via wireless technologies.Note, however, that various wired technologies may also be utilizeddepending on the implementation. As shown, different fixed hotspotaccess networks can be connected to a same backbone provider, but mayalso be connected to different respective backbone providers. In anexample implementation utilizing wireless technology for backboneaccess, such an implementation may be relatively fault tolerant. Forexample, a Fixed AP may utilize wireless communications to the backbonenetwork (e.g., cellular, 3G, LTE, other wide or metropolitan areanetworks, etc.) if the backhaul infrastructure is down.

In the example network 200, the same Fixed AP can simultaneously provideaccess to multiple Fixed APs, Mobile APs (e.g., vehicle OBUs, etc.),devices, user devices, sensors, things, etc. For example, a plurality ofmobile hotspot access networks (e.g., MAP-based networks, etc.) mayutilize the same Fixed AP. Also for example, the same Fixed AP canprovide a plurality of simultaneous accesses to another single unit(e.g., another Fixed AP, Mobile AP, device, etc.), for example utilizingdifferent channels, different radios, etc.). Note that a plurality ofFixed APs may be utilized for fault-tolerance/fail-recovery purposes.

Referring back to FIG. 1, the example Fixed Hotspot Access Network isshown with a wireless communication link to a backbone provider (e.g.,to one or more Backbone Providers and/or Local InfrastructureProviders), to a Mobile Hotspot Access Network, to one or more End UserDevices, and to the Environment. Also, the example Fixed Hotspot AccessNetwork is shown with a wired communication link to one or more BackboneProviders, to the Mobile Hotspot Access Network, to one or more End UserDevices, and to the Environment. The Environment may comprise any of avariety of devices (e.g., in-vehicle networks, devices, and sensors;autonomous vehicle networks, devices, and sensors; maritime (orwatercraft) and port networks, devices, and sensors; generalcontrolled-space networks, devices, and sensors; residential networks,devices, and sensors; disaster recovery & emergency networks, devices,and sensors; military and aircraft networks, devices, and sensors; smartcity networks, devices, and sensors; event (or venue) networks, devices,and sensors; underwater and underground networks, devices, and sensors;agricultural networks, devices, and sensors; tunnel (auto, subway,train, etc.) networks, devices, and sensors; parking networks, devices,and sensors; security and surveillance networks, devices, and sensors;shipping equipment and container networks, devices, and sensors;environmental control or monitoring networks, devices, and sensors;municipal networks, devices, and sensors; waste management networks,devices, and sensors, road maintenance networks, devices, and sensors,traffic management networks, devices, and sensors; advertising networks,devices and sensors; etc.).

The example network 100 of FIG. 1 also comprises a Mobile Hotspot AccessNetwork. Various example characteristics of such a Mobile Hotspot AccessNetwork 300 are shown at FIG. 3. Note that various fixed networkcomponents (e.g., Fixed APs) are also illustrated. The example network300 may, for example, share any or all characteristics with the otherexample methods, systems, networks and/or network components 100, 200,400, 500, and 600, discussed herein.

The example network 300 comprises a wide variety of Mobile APs (orhotspots) that provide access to user devices, provide for sensor datacollection, provide multi-hop connectivity to other Mobile APs, etc. Forexample, the example network 300 comprises vehicles from differentfleets (e.g., aerial, terrestrial, underground, (under)water, etc.). Forexample, the example network 300 comprises one or more massdistribution/transportation fleets, one or more mass passengertransportation fleets, private/public shared-user fleets, privatevehicles, urban and municipal fleets, maintenance fleets, drones,watercraft (e.g., boats, ships, speedboats, tugboats, barges, etc.),emergency fleets (e.g., police, ambulance, firefighter, etc.), etc.

The example network 300, for example, shows vehicles from differentfleets directly connected and/or mesh connected, for example using sameor different communication technologies. The example network 300 alsoshows fleets simultaneously connected to different Fixed APs, which mayor may not belong to different respective local infrastructureproviders. As a fault-tolerance mechanism, the example network 300 mayfor example comprise the utilization of long-range wirelesscommunication network (e.g., cellular, 3G, 4G, LTE, etc.) in vehicles ifthe local network infrastructure is down or otherwise unavailable. Asame vehicle (e.g., Mobile AP or OBU thereof) can simultaneously provideaccess to multiple vehicles, devices, things, etc., for example using asame communication technology (e.g., shared channels and/or differentrespective channels thereof) and/or using a different respectivecommunication technology for each. Also for example, a same vehicle canprovide multiple accesses to another vehicle, device, thing, etc., forexample using a same communication technology (e.g., shared channelsand/or different respective channels thereof, and/or using a differentcommunication technology).

Additionally, multiple network elements may be connected together toprovide for fault-tolerance or fail recovery, increased throughput, orto achieve any or a variety of a client's networking needs, many ofexamples of which are provided herein. For example, two Mobile APs (orOBUs) may be installed in a same vehicle, etc.

Referring back to FIG. 1, the example Mobile Hotspot Access Network isshown with a wireless communication link to a backbone provider (e.g.,to one or more Backbone Providers and/or Local InfrastructureProviders), to a Fixed Hotspot Access Network, to one or more End UserDevices, and to the Environment (e.g., to any one of more of the sensorsor systems discussed herein, any other device or machine, etc.). Thoughthe Mobile Hotspot Access Network is not shown having a wired link tothe various other components, there may (at least at times) be such awired link, at least temporarily.

The example network 100 of FIG. 1 also comprises a set of End-UserDevices. Various example end user devices are shown at FIG. 4. Note thatvarious other network components (e.g., Fixed Hotspot Access Networks,Mobile Hotspot Access Network(s), the Backbone/Core, etc.) are alsoillustrated. The example network 400 may, for example, share any or allcharacteristics with the other example methods, systems, networks and/ornetwork components 100, 200, 300, 500, and 600, discussed herein.

The example network 400 shows various mobile networked devices. Suchnetwork devices may comprise end-user devices (e.g., smartphones,tablets, smartwatches, laptop computers, webcams, personal gamingdevices, personal navigation devices, personal media devices, personalcameras, health-monitoring devices, personal location devices,monitoring panels, printers, etc.). Such networked devices may alsocomprise any of a variety of devices operating in the generalenvironment, where such devices might not for example be associated witha particular user (e.g., any or all of the sensor devices discussedherein, vehicle sensors, municipal sensors, fleet sensors road sensors,environmental sensors, security sensors, traffic sensors, waste sensors,meteorological sensors, any of a variety of different types of municipalor enterprise equipment, etc.). Any of such networked devices can beflexibly connected to distinct backbone, fixed hotspot access networks,mobile hotspot access networks, etc., using the same or differentwired/wireless technologies.

A mobile device may, for example, operate as an AP to providesimultaneous access to multiple devices/things, which may then form adhoc networks. Devices (e.g., any or all of the devices or network nodesdiscussed herein) may, for example, have redundant technologies toaccess distinct backbone, fixed hotspot, and/or mobile hotspot accessnetworks, for example for fault-tolerance and/or load-balancing purposes(e.g., utilizing multiple SIM cards, etc.). A device may also, forexample, simultaneously access distinct backbone, fixed hotspot accessnetworks, and/or mobile hotspot access networks, belonging to the sameprovider or to different respective providers. Additionally for example,a device can provide multiple accesses to another device/thing (e.g.,via different channels, radios, etc.).

Referring back to FIG. 1, the example End-User Devices are shown with awireless communication link to a backbone provider (e.g., to one or moreBackbone Providers and/or Local Infrastructure Providers), to a FixedHotspot Access Network, to a Mobile Hotspot Access Network, and to theEnvironment. Also for example, the example End-User Devices are shownwith a wired communication link to a backbone provider, to a FixedHotspot Access Network, to a Mobile Hotspot Access Network, and to theEnvironment.

People have always communicated with one another, beginning withphysical and oral communication, and progressing to forms of writtencommunication conveyed using physical and wired or wireless electronicmeans. As human desires for mobility have grown, various vehicles havebeen developed, and electronic forms of communication have allowedindividuals to maintain contact with one another while traveling usingthose vehicles. Support for various electronic forms of communicationhas become an integral part of the vehicles in use, to enable vehicleoperation and communication by vehicle occupants. The various electronicforms of communication are now integrated into the infrastructure of ourvehicles, and the advantages of electronically interconnecting systemsand occupants of neighboring vehicles using forms of wirelesscommunication are increasingly being realized, enabling safety andcomfort improvements for their users.

The Connected Vehicle (CV) concept leverages the ability of vehicles toelectronically communicate with one another, and with networks such asthe Internet. CV technologies enable vehicle systems to provide usefulcontext-aware information to a vehicle and to the vehicle operator(e.g., driver) or occupants, allowing the operator to make moreinformed, safer, energy-efficient, and better decisions. CV technologiesalso enable the vehicles to communicate terabytes of data between thephysical world and Cloud-based systems. Such data may then feed theoperational flows of, for example, transportation agencies,municipalities, and/or vehicle fleet owners, allowing such entities toenhance the knowledge they have about the environment and conditions inwhich their vehicles operate, and to benefit from having historical dataand actionable insights to better plan, allocate, and manage theiroperations and logistics, making them smarter, safer, cost-effective,and productive.

However, a CV cannot make any choices for the operator, and cannotnavigate and control the vehicle independently. Such actions are onlypossible in vehicles referred to herein as Autonomous Vehicles (AVs),which are computer-navigated vehicles that include autonomousfunctionalities including, by way of example and not limitation, theability to self-park the vehicle, the ability to control and navigatethe vehicle (e.g., start, stop, steer, etc.), and automatic collisionavoidance features. At first glance, AVs do not need CV technologies tooperate, since such vehicles are able to independently navigate the roadnetwork. Nevertheless, CV technologies enable the communication ofreal-time information about, for example, vehicle traffic, environmentalconditions, unexpected events, and all kinds of context information thatcharacterizes the roads on which the AVs are travelling. With suchinformation, AVs are equipped to make optimized decisions in-advance ofencountering situations such as, for example, congested travel routes,accidents or other obstacles along the road, etc. Also, CV technologiesenable AVs to maintain updated software/firmware and any data setsrelied upon by the AV (e.g., road maps).

The self-driving capability of AVs may facilitate and foster the use ofshared vehicles, enabling rental services of public vehicles (e.g.,fleets of taxis or buses) to substitute for personal vehicle ownership.Shared AVs may work better in dense urban areas, but there may also beresidential/household AVs serving multiple clients in the samegeographic region. The full-potential of the shared AV concept may, forexample, result from combining the power of allowing the same vehicle tobe used by multiple individuals (referred to herein as “vehiclesharing”) that may result in reduced parking costs, and from optimizingeach vehicle trip to serve the purposes of multiple passengers (referredto herein as “ride sharing”) that may reduce road congestion. The use ofshared AVs may increase the capacity utilization rate of vehicles andmay result in additional vehicle travel, which may include vehicletravel involved in the return to the origin of a trip, particularly insituations involving low-density suburban and rural areas.

Despite all the aforementioned benefits, the use of shared AVs withoutpersonal ownership is likely to involve more frequent cleaning andrepairs, and may have more sophisticated construction and electronicsurveillance requirements to minimize vandalism risks. These aspects mayreduce the comfort and privacy of passengers. Moreover, many privateindividuals that drive very frequently may continue to prefer to havetheir own vehicles, in order to show their own personal style, guidetourists, assist passengers to safely reach their destinations, carrytheir own luggage, etc.

In a future of autonomous and shared vehicles, the potential for muchhigher vehicle utilization may be seen as an opportunity for electricvehicles (EVs) to take the market by storm, which will increase the useof renewable and clean energy sources and reduce air pollution and CO₂emissions. Massive market penetration of EVs may be made possible withthe deployment of a scalable and connected infrastructure to, forexample, enable the monitoring of charging status of EV batteries, allowvehicle manufacturers to remotely monitor the deployment of new batterytechnologies, support automated reservation and billing at chargingstations, and permit remote control of charging schedules. Based onthose connectivity and technological needs, and looking to the demandsof AVs, one may conclude that a connected vehicle infrastructure thatenables the shared AV concept is the strongest and ideal candidate toalso empower the EV concept.

When one considers that the fleets of public vehicles we have today mayoperate as Fleets of Autonomous Vehicles that are Electric and Shared(FAVES), we may then consider the potential impact such FAVES may haveon, for example, the planning, design, and user behavior of cities androads; user urban travel and mobility; the transformation of people'slives; employment; and automotive industry planning and production.

The concept of FAVES, in accordance with the various aspects disclosedherein, offer a number of benefits. Such benefits include, for example,smart transportation that coordinates operations and rides to reduce thenumber of vehicles and avoid congestion on the roads and competition forparking spaces, providing for high-quality and highly efficienttransportation and improved user mobility. The use of FAVES according tothe present disclosure enables improvements in city infrastructureplanning, since cities may change the way the city provides access,enabling the re-design, elimination, and/or reduction in the capacity ofgarages, parking lots, and roads. The use of FAVES as described hereinallows an improved urban quality of life, where cities may bedifferentiated in terms of the mobility services they support, makingthe urban living more attractive. Such FAVES provide increased mobilityand may provide access to mobility services in empty backhauls, and inrural, less-developed areas. The use of such FAVES allows users toexperience enjoyable and convenient travel, where vehicle occupants areable to rest and/or work while traveling, increasing their productivityand reducing their stress levels, and where non-drivers have moreconvenient and affordable travel options that avoid the costs associatedwith travel that involves paid drivers (e.g., conventional taxis andbuses). FAVES as described herein provide for safer travel, because suchFAVES may decrease common vehicular travel risks, thereby avoiding thecosts of vehicle accidents and reducing insurance premiums. In addition,the availability of FAVES enables individuals to realize personalvehicle maintenance savings through the use of vehicle rental servicesas a substitute for personal vehicle ownership, which can eliminatemaintenance of personal vehicles and can result in various end-usersavings. The use of FAVES in accordance with the present disclosure maycause a shift in vehicle manufacture, as manufacturers move their focusfrom the building of traditional vehicles to the activities of sellingtravel time well spent, by making modular, upgradable, and re-usablevehicles.

The increased deployment of AVs (e.g., and likewise, FAVES) may comewith a number of potential costs and/or risks, which are addressed byvarious aspects of the present disclosure. For example, the use of AVsmay result in a reduction in employment of those individuals trained forthe operation, production, and maintenance of traditional vehicles. Theadoption of AVs may lead to a reduction in the need for drivers, as wellas the demand for those individuals skilled in vehicle repair, which maybe due to a reduction in vehicle accidents enabled by aspects describedherein. Such reductions in work force may enable the displaced workersto move to the types of work where they are needed including, forexample, the design and manufacturer of AVs. The use of AVs may alsocome with additional risks such as, for example, system failures, may beless safe under certain conditions, and may encourage road users to takeadditional risks. Systems in accordance with various aspects of thepresent disclosure address the handling of such system failures andamelioration of the potential risks. Aspects of the present disclosurehelp the operator of AVs (e.g., and FAVES as well) to avoid some of thecosts of additional equipment (e.g., sensors, computers and controls),services, and maintenance, and possibly roadway infrastructure, that maybe involved in meeting the manufacturing, installation, repair, testing,and maintenance standards for AVs, by minimizing the risks of systemfailures that could be fatal to both vehicle occupants and other usersof the roads on which the AVs travel. Some aspects of systems accordingto the present disclosure also address security/privacy risks such as,for example, the possible use of AVs for criminal/terrorist activities(e.g., bomb delivery) and the vulnerability of such systems toinformation abuse (e.g., GPS tracking/data sharing may raise privacyconcerns).

Although the traditional vehicle concept is well and widely understoodby most of society, the special requirements and capabilities ofautonomous vehicles, especially those autonomous vehicles that areelectric and shared (i.e., the FAVES concept), will change theautomotive industry.

In accordance with aspects of the present disclosure, vehicles that areautonomous, shared, and electrically powered are not simply a means tocarry people or goods from point A to point B, but rather become apowerful element able to perform different context-aware and mobilityactions, fueled by the interaction with the overall automotiveecosystem. This new paradigm allows a FAVES, as described herein, toplay an important role in the quality of life in urban areas, offeringbenefits to the traveler, the environment, transit providers,manufacturers, and other entities.

A system in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosuremanages the collaborative actions and decisions taken by the vehicles ofa FAVES. Such a system supports operation of a FAVES using aMobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) paradigm, offering mobility solutions toboth travelers and goods, based on travel needs. The system supportingthe application of the MaaS paradigm to the management of a FAVES maytake into consideration various factors including, for example, thevalue of passenger time, ridership habits, road occupancy,infrastructure status, social/environmental consequences of travel, andparking opportunities, to name just a few of those factors. A system inaccordance with the present disclosure helps end-users to avoidtraditional issues related to vehicle depreciation, financing costs,insurance, vehicle maintenance, taxes, etc., that are part ofconventional vehicle ownership and usage.

A system in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure improvesupon components used to support a successful MaaS strategy of themobility market of the future. Such a system may support a set ofchallenging services and strategies used when operating a FAVESaccording to a MaaS paradigm, and works to, for example, reduce citycongestion, reduce vehicle emissions, decrease costs to the end-user,improve utilization of transit providers, and enable the collaborationof different fleets of vehicles. Below, we provide additional details onthe operation and control of a system supporting to encourage deploymentof AVs (e.g., a FAVES) under a MaaS paradigm.

A system in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure maysupport combining transportation services from different public andprivate transportation providers, whether applied for movement of peopleand/or goods. Such a system may provide support for new mobility andon-demand service providers focused on ride-sharing, car-sharing, and/orbike-sharing.

A system according to various aspects of the present disclosure maysupport methods of managing (e.g., deployment/maximization) the capacityof roads such as, for example, managing deployment of autonomousvehicles in what may be referred to herein as “platooning,” the use ofnarrower roadway lanes, reducing vehicle stops at intersections, and theuse of improved road striping and road signage that aid recognition ofthe roadway by autonomous vehicles, thus decreasing roadcongestion/costs while increasing the efficiency and utilization oftransit providers that contribute to the overall transit network in aregion.

A system according to the present disclosure may support the creationand management of AV trips, which may, for example, be done throughmultiple modes. The system may provide for converging bookings andpayments that may be managed collectively, under the same systemplatform, in which end-users may pay using a single account. Inaccordance with aspects of the present disclosure, the system maysupport different subscription methods such as, for example,“pay-per-trip,” and the use of a monthly fee that provides for a certaintravel distance and/or a fee structure that supports unlimited travel byend-users. The system may provide for system and end-user tracking of AVusage, and that includes functionality that provides for the handling ofvarious end-user incentives and/or tax exemptions based on thereductions of overall emissions resulting from the use of AVs forend-user travel. A system in accordance with various aspects of thepresent disclosure may provide operator tools that permit the definitionof various parameters relating to parking facilities such as, by way ofexample and not limitation, system parameters concerning the cost ofparking and/or public transit demands, which may be used by the systemin determining actions (e.g., parking, charging, traveling) that AVsshould take when waiting without passengers. A system according to thepresent disclosure may include functionality that encourages andsupports the furtherance of AV deployment such as, for example, toolsand reporting functionality that support vehicle and systemcertification policies, licensing rules, and autonomous vehiclefollowing distance requirements.

A FAVES in a network providing MaaS will transform the opportunitiesthat are available to those wishing to travel, by enabling people tohave door-to-door transfer via self-navigating vehicles to preferreddestinations, at a speed of travel normally available using privatevehicle travel, and at a cost-per-mile comparable to that of a subwayticket, or at a significantly lower cost than current taxi andridesharing prices.

Operating a FAVES to provide MaaS involves use of a system that supportsa service-driven and market-oriented stack that embodies the know-how,market needs, and requirements of different actors including, forexample, end-users; institutions; vehicle and infrastructure equipmentmanufacturers; legal, regulatory, government, and safety organizations;and/or other agencies. A system in accordance with the presentdisclosure enables those actors to join forces and act together to buildand manage a scalable, high-performance, robust, and safe ecosystem inwhich AVs are the central point to provide high-value services able tooptimize network capacity, reduce congestion on roads, make apassenger's journey stress free, positively impact community andsocio-economic growth, increase safety, and improve fleet operations.Additional details of the functionality of a system supporting the useof a FAVES in providing MaaS are discussed below.

A system in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure maysupport functionality for management of the infrastructure with whichAVs will operate or interact such as, for example, roads, parkingplaces/spaces, cities, etc., and may be designed, developed, andoptimized to cope with the specific requirements of AVs. There is astrong public, business, and government interest in, for example,reducing congestion and pollution along roads and highways, and indecreasing the time spent entering and leaving parking facilities. Asystem in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure may supportthe design and implementation of such infrastructure elements from thebeginning, including providing support for the inclusion of the latestinnovations in roadway striping, signage, and traffic controllights/signs, thus providing support for the best physical substrate tosupport AV operation.

To enable the management of installation and maintenance ofinfrastructure elements that support AV operation, systems in accordancewith the present disclosure support system interfaces for interactionsinvolving municipal authorities, transit and transportation providers,and/or governmental and legal agencies, that can explore and implementpolicies, managed via system parameters, that will further AVdeployment, such as certification policies, licensing rules, andfollowing distance standards.

A system in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure mayprovide support for private sector companies such as, for example,Tesla, Google, Uber, etc. that may control the deployment of AVs andmany of the technologies that those AVs use. Those companies arebuilding many of the AVs now being explored. A system supporting a FAVESas described herein will enable such private sector companies to respondto market forces including, for example, being involved in thedeployment and management of AV software for FAVES. Such software mayinclude, for example, functionality related to automated controls (e.g.,steering, braking, signals, etc.), self-parking, auto-collisionavoidance features, self-vehicle control, etc. Such a system may providesupport for in-vehicle services that leverage on AV functionalities.

A system in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure mayprovide support for traditional vehicle OEMs, as they transition tosupport the MaaS paradigm. Such traditional vehicle OEMs may continue tofind ways to sell vehicles to end-users, but may also turn the conceptof “building traditional vehicles to sell directly to the end-user” intoselling vehicles to service providers, or vehicles as a service,focusing on, for example, “Miles” or “Amount of time well spent” ratherthan on “Number of vehicles sold.” A system in accordance with aspectsof the present invention may provide support for the transition of suchOEMs from traditional vehicle sale to end-users, providing support formanagement, maintenance, rotation, and usage tracking of AVs of a FAVES,as the AVs pass from the OEMs, to the service providers, and into fullservice with end-users.

It is expected that traditional vehicle OEMs may begin a move into theAV market by deploying modular, upgradable, and re-usable AV hardware toenable the provision of services on top of them. Things such as, forexample, display screens used to provide infotainment services for theoccupants; diverse types of and/or redundant sensors (e.g., optical,infrared, radar, ultrasonic, and laser) capable of operating in avariety of conditions (e.g., rain, snow, unpaved roads, tunnels, etc.);high-functionality, in-vehicle cameras and computers, as well assophisticated vehicle and occupant monitoring and electronicsurveillance systems, to minimize the effects of system failures andrisks due to vandalism, while increasing system physical and datasecurity. A system according to various aspects of the presentdisclosure provides support for deployment/installation, tracking,maintenance, and upgrade of such AV hardware.

The operation of most AV services and functionalities will involvecommunication and/or operation with an environment that surrounds eachAV, and with the Internet. Thus, the software and hardware functionalityof the AV and the operation of a system in accordance with the presentdisclosure may depend heavily on leveraging secure, high-bandwidth,low-latency, reliable communication technologies and protocols, as wellas data management services able to optimize AV operations. An exampleof a suitable network capable of supporting AVs of a FAVES according tothe present disclosure may be found, for example, in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 15/133,756, filed Apr. 20, 2016, and entitled“Communication Network of Moving Things; U.S. patent application Ser.No. 15/132,867, filed Apr. 19, 2016, and entitled “IntegratedCommunication Network for a Network of Moving Things;” and U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 15/451,696, filed Mar. 7, 2017, and entitled“Systems and Methods for Managing Mobility in a Network of MovingThings; the entirety of each of which is hereby incorporated herein byreference”.

In this manner, AVs of a FAVES may be equipped with the connectivitysolutions to enable them to perform functions such as, for example, theactions of inter-AV coordination and functionality that enables AVs of aFAVES to reach a consensus among multiple vehicles usingvehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications; the acquisition, sharing, andoffloading of data, events, and other digital content locally and/or viathe Internet; the use of long-range communication systems (e.g.,cellular) to gain access to road and highway maps, AV system softwareupgrades, road condition reports, and emergency messages; and theestablishment of connectivity fallback in case of any emergency, etc.

On top of the networking infrastructure that connects AVs, describedherein, there are services that a system according to the presentdisclosure may provide to help ensure the most suitable functionality,behavior, and monitoring of the AV network takes place. A system inaccordance with the present disclosure may, for example, providefunctionality that supports AV maintenance; electronic map updates;vehicle insurance-related tracking of AV movement and events that occurduring operation of the AV; operator and end-user interfaces; andmanagement of one or more FAVES that are independent, coordinated,and/or cooperative.

The services supported by a system according to aspects of the presentdisclosure may be targeted for different types of markets, and mayinclude, for example, the testing, maintenance and repair of AVcomponents such as sensors and controls; services related toultra-precise navigation tools including, for example, those related toone or more Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNS) (e.g., GlobalPositioning System (GPS)) and 2D/3D map information; and servicesrelated to the management, storage, and securitization of video feedsthat can be important for insurance purposes. Additional servicessupported by a system according to the present disclosure may include,for example, application programming interfaces (APIs) that enableaccess to data, events, and other digital contents having possibleimpact on the operations and logistics of fleets, as well as onadvertising campaigns of different agencies and retailers; and APIs toremotely manage and control the operations and software of AVs, whichmay be important for fleet managers.

A system according to aspects of the present disclosure may providesupport for management of various aspects of human factors involved inthe interaction of AVs with end-users or consumers, as well as theimpact of those factors on the requirements of services that leverage onthe AV ecosystem, which may be a part of any AV deployment. Thoseservices may, for example, be related to environmental or refusemanagement in cities, the management of Wi-Fi offload forend-users/consumers, road pricing and fees for vehicular travel withincities or states, and/or APIs for system developers.

A system in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure may takeinto consideration the influence of human behaviors on the delivery ofservices. The system may be configured to take into account theuse-cases, scenarios, and socio-economic impact resulting from theinteraction of AVs and the system described herein with people andcommunities, as well as vulnerable users. In this way, the systemaccording to aspects of the present disclosure may be arranged so thatthe overall ecosystem provided and orchestrated around AVs may betailored to meet the needs/desires of different end-users and operators.

A system in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosuremay provide support for a set of “technology pillars” that may be usedoperate and manage one or more AVs in a way that enables the AVs todeliver valuable products or services for multiple markets. An exampleset of such “technology pillars” are related to, for example,“connected” technologies (e.g., wireless communication networktechnologies for a network of moving things); the inclusion of advancedand sophisticated hardware/software systems that increase the securityand safety of both AV occupants and other users of the roads/highways;and functionality that is configured to handle the huge volumes of datathat come with the operation of large numbers of AVs, consistent withenabling existing operating models and services of Intelligent TransportSystem (ITS) companies to fully benefit from such data. The example setof “technology pillars” supported by a system according to aspects ofthe present disclosure may also include functionality that enablesgroups of AVs to autonomously make collaborative decisions among the AVsof the group; and functionality that supports using the MaaS concept tooperate and manage AVs in an integrated way. Additional details aboutthe above-listed “technology pillars” that may be supported by a systemas described herein, are provided below.

Wireless digital connectivity may be a part of many AV use-cases andscenarios, and may be of significant importance to AV passengers for usein accessing the Internet, to AV manufacturers for performing remotediagnosis and over-the-air software/firmware/configuration/data (e.g.,map) updates, to advertising agencies and retailers for use in updatingAV media content, to AV software companies and developers to test newfunctionality of AVs, and to service providers for acquisition of datarelated to their services. Various example systems and methods thatprovide media information (e.g., multi-media, music, advertising, etc.)may be found in U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/376,937,filed on Aug. 19, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods to ImproveMultimedia Content Distribution in a Network of Moving Things;” U.S.patent application Ser. No. 15/414,978, filed on Jan. 25, 2017, andentitled “Systems and Methods for Managing Digital Advertising Campaignsin a Network of Moving Things;” and U.S. Provisional Patent ApplicationSer. No. 62/429,410, filed on Dec. 2, 2016, and entitled “Systems andMethods for Improving Content Distribution for Fleets of Vehicles,Including for Example Autonomous Vehicles, By Using Smart SupplyStations;” the entire contents of each of which are hereby incorporatedherein by reference.

Due to the different connectivity needs of the various use-cases andscenarios in which AVs will operate, a system in accordance with variousaspects of the present disclosure may provide smart and intelligentconnectivity tools, to help operators and end-users make sure that thetype, scope, and capacity of the wireless connectivity made available toeach AV is tailored to the context and requirements of each individualscenario, while optimizing the functionality of the AV and the servicesprovided by the AV, as a whole.

A system in accordance with the present disclosure may provide supportfor the configuration and management of, for example, heterogeneous andhigh-capacity connectivity over different networks; context-aware accessto connectivity and mobility; the aggregation of bandwidth throughdifferent technologies; a gateway for Internet access, connectivityfallback, and networking offload; the evolution of V2V, V2I, and V2Xcommunication architecture and equipment; and smart management of radiofrequency (RF) spectrum occupancy.

A system in accordance with the present disclosure may provide supportfor deployment of AVs on a large scale and at a fleet level, and willinclude functionality that AVs may need to securely communicate andcooperate with one another to reach agreement regarding local actions tobe performed by AVs on a road or highway. AVs may often need to makedecisions carrying significant risk that are coordinated with other AVs,without the need to communicate with centrally located systems andnetworking points that may impose additional and unacceptable delays andoverhead upon such decisions. A system in accordance with aspects of thepresent disclosure enables an AV to quickly initiate secure and trustedvehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), and/orvehicle to anything (V2X) communications with neighbor AV andinfrastructure elements. Such a system may, for example, provide fordeployment of context-aware protocols or “security-as-a-service”packages based on the level of security required for any AV applicationand/or service; and ensure that security logs of AVs are stored andcommunicated to the system or other elements in a delay-tolerant fashionfor backup, backtracking, and fault detection. The system may, forexample, provide support and configuration systems that enable quick andtrusted consensus among AVs; that enable secure interoperability betweenAVs from different fleets; and that provide and distributeAuthentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) functions.

A system in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosurewill provide support for the functionality of AVs referred to herein asAdvanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS), which the independent andself-driving capabilities of AVs including, for example, recognition ofroads and highways; classification of obstacles on roads and highways;automatic collision avoidance features; alerts regarding hazardous roadconditions; to name only a few. In order to minimize the risks offailure of such AV systems, a system according to the present disclosureleverages the connectivity among AVs, thus enabling AVs to immediatelyshare knowledge with one another and with the Cloud, thus increasing theoverall safety of autonomous driving and navigation on the roads andhighways.

To support the use and management of ADAS in AVs, a system as describedherein may provide functionality that enables, configures, and/ormanages collective learning (or nearby teaching), by sharing/forwardinglocal information in context (e.g., broadcasting ofwarnings/announcements/streamed information); and that identifiespriorities and/or forms clusters among AVs at intersections, in case ofaccidents, when required to follow a particular AV or form a line of AVs(e.g., “platooning”), and when emergency vehicles or a platoon ofvehicles are on the road, etc. A system as described herein may providefunctionality that ensures that critical driving applications such as,by way of example and not limitation, “see-through,” “blind spot”monitoring, lane/trajectory change assistance, the following of specificvehicles, a requirement to maintain a minimum inter-vehicle distance,overtaking maneuvers, collision warnings, etc., are provided with orgather look-ahead and predictive context information.

A system in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosuremay provide functionality that supports instances where an emergency orcatastrophe response is needed. Such a system may provide functionalityand/or information that enables each AV to, for example, detect when anemergency vehicle is approaching the AV (e.g., via mesh networking);trigger/disseminate an emergency mode activation across the networkconnecting one or more AVs; allow AVs to detect that an emergency modehas been/should be activated; provide appropriate configuration and/orinformation for each AV to act as a mobile gateway to the Internet;allow real-time, data-driven dispatching of emergency vehicles/firstresponders; define how the AV infrastructure is to behave/operate incase of an emergency; and to permit others (e.g., a system operator, lawenforcement, vehicle manufacturer) to remotely control AVs in case ofemergency (fallback).

AVs are not expected to be able to function without having access todata, and will benefit from a data-driven communication infrastructure.Such data will be provided across the population of AVs, and will betailored to the context or service in question. AVs will benefit fromactionable data that is available on-time and at a per-vehicle level,with a resolution, granularity, and/or frequency that is tailored to thecontext or service in question, and that enable the AV to use such datato provide added-value to different applications. A system in accordancewith various aspects of the present disclosure will provide dynamic,personalized, and flexible data management mechanisms that may, forexample, aggregate contextualized data from multiple sources andsensors, where such data is tailored for different types of services andapplications; enable the collection and fusion of different types ofdata, while enabling customized data filtering, at a vehicle or Cloudlevel; and provide APIs to enable customized configuration of datasensing mechanisms (e.g., sampling rates, resolution, frequency). Such asystem may provide functionality and controls, for example, to enabledata distribution for environmental awareness (e.g., context-awarelook-ahead), including the deployment of the policies/thresholds thatdefine whether or not to use the data; and deploy mechanisms for dataprioritization (e.g., real-time (RT) or delay-tolerant network (DTN) andin what order), as well as policies for data ordering, caching, and/ordropping. The system may also provide the functionality and controls,for example, to perform accounting of the levels of data usage (e.g.,based on Bitcoin or credits to use; to allow different stakeholders,parties, fleets, and/or AVs to subscribe to different types, levels, andamount of data through well-defined APIs; and to integrate data fromdifferent stakeholders, parties, fleets, and/or AVs through APIs, whilefostering data sharing through specific incentives/policies.

A system in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosureprovides functionality for collecting and analyzing data to produceanalytics that may be used for the operation, control, and management ofAVs that, for example, may have self-driven and autonomousfunctionalities and services. Such AVs may have requirements and needsin terms of communication latency and bandwidth and may, for example,have a need to frequently perform data analytics and to quickly generateknowledge at or near the source of the data. A system as describedherein may provide support to such AVs, which may employ local resourcesthat might not be continuously connected to the Internet. A system inaccordance with the present disclosure anticipates the operation,control, and management of AVs, as such autonomous vehicles becomeincreasingly more intelligent than vehicles of today, in order to allowthe functionalities and services of advanced AVs to behave and/or act asexpected and in a reliable fashion. Such a system may be configured tocontinue to scale and expand the functionality and capabilities, as AVsare endowed with ever increasing computational, storage, and processingresources that allow such AVs to run applications that leverage onresource intensive algorithms such as, for example, object detection andclassification, map localization, path planning, video streaming, etc.In addition, a system as described herein supports the operation,control, and management of AVs able to infer further knowledge throughsophisticated machine learning or artificial intelligence techniques.

As the focus on the power of big data and analytics increases, a systemaccording to various aspects of the present disclosure may be used toquantify, generate, and aggregate the type and amount of resources,data, and knowledge involved, and may be tailored to feed differentservices, locally or at the Cloud. Such a system may, for example,provide and/or produce sufficient data/knowledge and derivethresholds/policies to detect and enable just-in-time optimizations ofservices that may be done locally (e.g., at the edge), or adjust fortheir integration with fallback to the Cloud. A system in accordancewith various aspects of the present disclosure may enable networkoptimizations through the use of collaborative and continuous sharedlearning that may be done locally (e.g., to relevant vehicles), or atthe Cloud for general learning. Such systems may enable, for example,the detection of anomalies and exceptions in algorithms in use at AVs,and may, for example, send information about them to Cloud, performcorrections or adjustments to the algorithms, and/or send suchcorrections or adjustment back to AVs. A system in accordance with thepresent disclosure may log, aggregate and analyze data networkconnectivity, AV mobility, and data traces of AVs, and may derivepatterns of road/highway usage, AV trips, the locations of end-users,and various demands upon the AVs and the system. A system as describedherein may also operate to increase AV location accuracy by, forexample, correlating GNSS/GPS data of different AVs and integrating suchdata into value-added maps of expected AV routes, destinations, andorigins.

A system in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure providesthe functionality that may be needed to support various managed servicesand applications. Such a system may enable different companies whosegoals are to make the cities and fleets smarter, to optimize theoperation of a data-driven communication infrastructure and the AVs thatit serves by communicatively coupling the AVs to one another and to theCloud, while making it possible for MaaS providers to get theconnectivity and data that they need. In this way, a system as describedherein makes it possible for operators of FAVES to, for example, betterdefine AV trips, optimize the operation of FAVES in real-time, enablenew forms of AV sharing to ease congestion and lower transportationcosts for riders, and provide urban, road, transportation, and fleetplanning departments with unprecedented data used to drive theirdecisions regarding FAVES planning, operation, and maintenance.

In order to help improve management of services and applications, asystem according to aspects of the present disclosure may, for example,enable customers, clients, and/or developers to access and deployservices in the same shared AV infrastructure through Software DefinedNetworking (SDN)/Network Function Virtualization (NFV) functions; and todeploy private, secure, transparent, and portable APIs to access theHigh-Definition (HD) data (a.k.a., data with high-granularity) andservices that may be available at a vehicle and/or Cloud level. A systemas described herein may, for example, feed various services with data,events, video streaming and contents, detailed reports, and analysis,and alerts of their usage, health, and diagnostics, making providers,customers, and/or clients more aware of their services. Such a systemmay enable secure, contextualized, customized, and predictiveannouncements, advertisements, broadcasting and management of relevantdata, events, video streaming and contents to feed such services. Asystem according to aspects of the present disclosure may determine andprioritize the data that will be relevant for each single service, AV,operator, customer, and/or client based on their needs and requirements;and may make the operation of service “over-the-air” update mechanismsmore modular, flexible, reliable, and accountable, while enabling thedeployment of management, monitoring, and configuration functions asmanaged services.

AVs may perform large numbers of real-time, resource-intensive, andcritical actions while on-the-move, and most of these actions may bedecided and performed locally, without interacting with functionality inthe Cloud, because Cloud-based systems might only be accessible throughhigh-latency and/or low-throughput communication links, and/or might nothave all the data available that may be used in making accurate andsynchronized decisions. A system according to the present disclosure mayprovide the support needed to enable AVs endowed with suchdecision-making capabilities to collaborate with one or more nearby AVsand/or with other devices at the edge of the network, which may belocally available. By enabling the operation of distributed,collaborative, and coordinated decision makers, a system according tothe present disclosure may enable AVs to leverage information andcomputing resources of their neighbor devices to carry out substantialamounts of data storage, communication, configuration, measurement, andmanagement functions. This may occur, for example, when the AVs do nothave sufficient resources available. In some situations, an AV may, forexample, contact resources in the Cloud for increased redundancy orfallback. In this context, a system in accordance with aspects of thepresent disclosure may provide mechanisms that enable AVs to, forexample, provide open and secure APIs to allow AVs from differentfleets/owners to announce, advertise, discover and start collaboratingwith each other in an ad-hoc or peer-to-peer (P2P) fashion, in order toresolve together any coordinated decision that affects the behavior ofany data/control/service function. Such a system may enable an AV to,for example, detect whether any decision or management function may bedone locally or should be done at the Cloud level, by considering thescope/locality of the function, and a required level ofredundancy/fallback. A system as described herein may allow fordifferent levels of interoperability that may include, for example,operability between vehicles, operability from a vehicle to the Cloud(e.g., map information, video streaming, etc.), and operability from theCloud to a vehicle (e.g., map information, OS updates, etc.) based on,for example, the various communication technologies available (e.g.,V2V, V2I, cellular, etc.), the origin of the data (e.g., vehicle,end-user device, sensor, network), and/or the location of dataconsumers. A system according to the present disclosure may, forexample, provide mechanisms to enable distributed negotiations andconsensus in the network of AVs, by providing a means for other devicesto request needs and to enable AV election and/or enforce AVprioritization when required to perform any distributed action in thenetwork.

When operating a FAVES for MaaS, multiple entities may interact and/orcollaborate in order to support service-driven business models built ontop of a shared communication and management infrastructure thatcommunicatively couples the AVs. The entities may include, by way ofexample and not limitation, transit and transportation stakeholders,fleet operators, governmental and legal agencies, AV manufacturers,infrastructure owners, municipal authorities, service providers, andinsurance companies. A system in accordance with aspects of the presentdisclosure may enable various AV-based business models, includingfunctionality related to service pricing and taxation (e.g., data-drivenassessment value), payment and charging, incentives, exemptions, costsharing, travel planning/scheduling, parking space/slot management,road/highway management, delivery management, and weight management.

A system in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosuremay provide functionality that helps to make the business modelsflexible, usable, and scalable, while maximizing the likelihood of usingshared AVs. Such a system may operate to, for example, gather the RT andDTN data used to feed the MaaS business models; provide a set ofstandard open APIs for data access to aid in fostering competition;enable access to and accounting of data related to, for example, anyforms of payment accepted for services rendered (e.g., new Bitcoin-basedbusiness models such as, pay per data, pay per use, etc.; and providefunctionality that supports improvements to customer/client businessmodels by analyzing the impact of data, mobility and connectivitypatterns and trends. A system according to various aspects of thepresent disclosure may provide tools to, for example, determine theimpact of the business models on the revenue/costs for any entitysharing the AV infrastructure.

A system according to various aspects of the present disclosure providesfunctionality that supports a variety of AV tasks and/or actionsincluding, but not limited to, traveling, parking, and or charging. Sucha system may, for example, provide functionality used to support travelassociated with the pickup, transfer, and offload of passengers, goods,or data, in addition to the actions of traveling to a charging stationor a parking slot/space. In addition, an AV travel action may take placeto move an AV to a location at which it is needed to perform the abovetravel actions. A system as described herein may plan, schedule, and/orcoordinate such travel actions. In addition, the system may plan,schedule, and/or coordinate a number of activities of the AV during theact of traveling including, for example, uploading and/or downloadingdata to/from the Cloud; acting as a mobile gateway to the Internet;acquiring and sensing relevant context information for local or generallearning; detecting unexpected events and/or behaviors; locallybroadcasting, announcing, advertising, and/or sharing media content;providing support for local and/or global services; and providingInternet access to occupants of the AV.

A system in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure may alsosupport functionality related to periods of time when the AV is parkedsuch as, for example, planning, scheduling, and/or coordinating theuploading and/or downloading by the AV of data to/from the Cloud;providing a stable and reliable gateway to the Internet for end-users inthe vicinity of the AV; and providing new or additional connectivity ofa wireless access infrastructure.

The network-based and transportation-related tasks or actions that maybe performed by AVs such as, for example, travelling, parking, gatheringdata, enabling communications, providing support for services, andproviding transportation of people and/or goods each occur within acontext. A system in accordance with the present disclosure may useinformation about context as input to algorithms, functions, and/orpolicies that may determine whether or not the AV is to, by way ofexample and not limitation, provide wireless connectivity to vehicleoccupants; store or advertise data; travel over a particular route;remain stopped at a certain location; proceed to a charging station orparking place; and/or act as an urban sensor or data courier. It isclear that the example actions listed above are not only related toproviding wireless connectivity, but that such actions also affect theAV ecosystem. Additional details are provided below regarding varioussets of context information that may affect the AV behavior and/orfunctionalities.

Various examples of the AV (or components thereof) operating as a datacollector and/or courier may, for example, be found in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 15/213,269, filed Jul. 18, 2016, and entitled“Systems and Methods for Collecting Sensor Data in a Network of MovingThings;” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/228,613, filed Aug. 4,2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods for Environmental Management ina Network of Moving Things;” U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/245,992, filed Aug. 24, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods forShipping Management in a Network of Moving Things;” U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 15/337,856, filed Oct. 28, 2016, and entitled“Systems and Methods for Optimizing Data Gathering in a Network ofMoving Things;” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/428,085, filed onFeb. 8, 2017, and entitled “Systems and Methods for Managing Vehicle OBDData in a Network of Moving Things, for Example Including AutonomousVehicle Data;” U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/350,814,filed Jun. 16, 2016, and entitled “System and Methods for ManagingContains in a Network of Moving Things;” the entire contents of each ofwhich is hereby incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.

Various example aspects of vehicle positioning or route or travelcontrol, vehicle tracking, vehicle monitoring, etc., may, for example,be found in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/215,905, filed on Aug.4, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods for Environmental Managementin a Network of Moving Things;” U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser.No. 62/415,196, filed Oct. 31, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Methodfor Achieving Action Consensus Among a Set of Nodes in a Network ofMoving Things;” U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/336,891,filed May 16, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods for VehicularPositioning Based on Message Round-Trip Times in a Network of MovingThings;” U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/377,350, filedAug. 19, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods for Flexible SoftwareUpdate in a Network of Moving Things;” U.S. Provisional PatentApplication Ser. No. 62/360,592, filed Jul. 11, 2016, and entitled“Systems and Methods for Vehicular Positioning Based on WirelessFingerprinting Data in a Network of Moving Things;” U.S. ProvisionalPatent Application Ser. No. 62/415,268, filed Oct. 31, 2016, andentitled “Systems and Methods to Deploy and Control a Node in a Networkof Moving Things;” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/351,811, filedNov. 15, 2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods to ExtrapolateHigh-Value Data from a Network of Moving Things;” and U.S. ProvisionalPatent Application Ser. No. 62/417,705, filed Nov. 4, 2016, and entitled“Systems and Methods for the User-Centric Calculation of the ServiceQuality of a Transportation Fleet in a Network of Moving Things;” theentire contents of each of which is hereby incorporated herein byreference.

A system according to aspects of the present disclosure may gatherand/or employ a variety of characteristics or parameters for each of anumber of different types of AV contexts. For example, such a system mayinclude functionality that supports entry, collection, and/or use ofvarious characteristics or parameters of a geographic region such as,for example, a city, county, state, province, and/or country. In thecontext of a geographic region, characteristics such as, for example,the density of available access points (APs) may be stored and used inselecting the routes of AVs, thus providing high-quality and low-costconnectivity for Internet access and upload/download data to/from theCloud. A system as described herein may employ information about thephysical/geographic location(s) of various possible sources of end-userdemands that may be placed upon AVs of a FAVES, to optimize the trips ofAVs, and/or the number of AVs to be made available at specificgeographic locations in order to meet end-user demand for wirelessservice or transportation at the locations of groups of end-users (e.g.,where crowds are located), thus reducing the time that end-users waitfor the service(s) provided by the AVs.

A system in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosuremay use information about unexpected events in a particular geographicregion (e.g., a city) such as, for example, road obstructions, vehicleand/or pedestrian accidents, and/or the closing of roads/highways toallow the system to feed such details to AV trip planning algorithms, assoon as possible. The population of a particular geographic region mayalso be taken into account by such a system, in that the algorithms usedto schedule AVs for the particular geographic region should take intoaccount the density and demographics of the potential end-users in thatgeographic region, and whether the geographic region is an urban,suburban, or rural area. For instance, the system may plan for an AVthat is leaving a city at the end of the day, to wait for more peoplethat will travel to the same region.

A system according to aspects of the present disclosure may, forexample, include functionality that supports entry, collection, and/oruse of various characteristics or parameters of a network of varioustypes and sizes of roads (e.g., streets, highways, tollways, and thelike). For road pricing purposes, such a system may take the type ofroad (e.g., a municipal road or highway, a one-lane or a two-lane road,whether a toll is charged on the road/highway, whether the road is urbanor rural, etc.) into account when planning AV routes, scheduling trips,etc. Such a system may, for example, support the entry, collection,and/or use of various characteristics or parameters related to roadcongestion and usage. For example, if an end-user chooses to make a tripover a congested road, the end-user may be required to pay a fee basedon the levels of congestion of the road on which they choose to travel.A system in accordance with the present disclosure may, for example,operate with a goal of balancing trips over the available roads. In asimilar way, a system in accordance with the present disclosure may makeit possible for end-users to pay more for travel over a less congestedroad/route, if such a road/route is available. A system described hereinmay use information about the density of AVs traveling various roads,may detect that the number of AVs traveling over a specific road isincreasing, and may use such information to predict, in advance, whichroads should be used to perform trips.

A system according to aspects of the present disclosure may also supportthe entry, collection, and/or use of various characteristics orparameters related to road conditions. Such a system may monitorobstacles or other problems on the roads used by AVs. The system may beable to predict such obstacles (e.g., based on historical information onroad obstructions/issues of the roads of interest), and may advertisesuch information to AVs and/or system located in the Cloud, in advance,to aid in quickly finding alternate routes for AVs. For road pricingpurposes, trips over roads that are in poor condition or that impedetravel may be considered to be relatively more expensive, as furthertravel on such roads makes those roads worse, and may cause additionalwear and tear on the AVs in use.

A system according to aspects of the present disclosure may also supportthe entry, collection, and/or use of various characteristics orparameters related to vehicle parking. Such a system may use suchinformation to direct AVs that are waiting for riders to, for example,move to a traditional parking space/slot, or to continue moving about tofind additional riders. Also, the system may use demand information interms of end-users, connectivity, and data to feed algorithms thatdecide whether AVs will stay parked to, for example, increase coverageor act a reliable gateway for Internet, or to travel when carryingpeople or goods. Example details of various systems and methods forperforming such operation may, for example, be found in U.S. ProvisionalPatent Application Ser. No. 62,449,394, filed Jan. 23, 2017, andentitled “Systems and Methods for Utilizing Mobile Access Points asFixed Access Points in a Network of Moving Things, for Example IncludingAutonomous Vehicles,” the entire contents of which is herebyincorporated herein by reference for all purposes.

When an AV has more than one parking place available near a tripdestination, characteristics or parameters related to the cost, size,and congestion of those parking places may be evaluated by a system ofthe present disclosure, to aid in the selection the best parking placeat the current time. In addition, when an AV is nearing the destinationof the current trip and parking places are available along the triproute, a system such as that described herein may use characteristics orparameters such as, for example, those indicative of road congestion andparking place availability to decide whether to park or to continuetraveling, right up to the point of arrival at the trip destination.

A system according to aspects of the present disclosure may also supportthe entry, collection, and/or use of various characteristics orparameters related to the charging of AV batteries. For example, whenthe level of charge of the batteries of an AV drops below a certainthreshold, a system according to the present disclosure may evaluate thelevel of charge and the occupancy of nearby charging station(s) to aidthe AV in determining whether the AV should stay parked (e.g., acting asa reliable gateway for the Internet) rather than continuing to traveland thereby consume the remaining battery power, or that the AV shouldshare some actions (e.g., carrying end-users or goods) with nearby AVs.Information about the limited electric budget that the AVs may have toperform their operations may be evaluated by such a system. In addition,a system according to the present disclosure may evaluatecharacteristics and parameters representative of theoccupancy/congestion and size/charging capacity of the charging stationscurrently available, in order to reduce the time that AVs spendcharging.

Although the present disclosure frequently describes AVs that employelectricity for propulsion, some AVs may, for example, use other sourcesof energy. For AV pricing purposes, a system in accordance with aspectsof the present disclosure may use characteristics and parameters enteredand/or collected by the system to evaluate the fees charged end-usersbased on the source of energy (e.g., type of fuel) used to operate theAV so that, for example, pricing of end-user fees for use of AVs may beadjusted according to costs of operation, operator and/or governmentalpolicies (e.g., higher usage fees for AVs powered by less-efficient andnon-renewable sources of energy).

A system according to aspects of the present disclosure may also supportthe entry, collection, and/or use of various characteristics orparameters related to fleets of AVs, where the fleets may be ofdifferent types of AVs and/or have different owners/operators. Forexample, there may be different types of public or private fleets ofAVs, and each of those fleets may, for example, be operated by adifferent entity, may run different services, and/or may perform heavyor light operations. A system in accordance with the present disclosuremay take into account such information in an AV selection function as,for example, one or more end-user preferences.

A system according to aspects of the present disclosure may, forexample, enable balancing the trips requested of a fleet, or theservices running on the AVs of a fleet, among all of the AVs of thefleet. Such a system may provide the functionality to permit assignmentof priorities to each of the applications running on an AV, to enablemanagement of the limited network resources and/or data capacity of theAV.

Such a system may also provide functionality that enables selection ofan AV from a public fleet. Such functionality may be configured tosupport end-user preferences such as, for example, an end-userpreference for an AV having routes that run more frequently, in order tominimize end-user delays, or an end-user preference for an AV thatoffers a larger number of infotainment services, for end-userconvenience and enjoyment.

A system according to aspects of the present disclosure may also supportthe entry, collection, and/or use of various characteristics orparameters related to features of the AV itself. For example, such asystem may be configured with functionality that enables end-users,operators, maintenance personnel, and/or any other authorizedindividuals or entities to determine the current weight and availablespace of an AV, to enable one to check, for example, whether an AV hasavailable capacity for additional riders or additional goods. Suchinformation about current weight or available space for riders or goodsmay be available in real-time to enable, for example, operators to beapprised of situations in which items have been left on an AV (e.g.,bags/babies/bombs), by verifying that the weight of the AV before theboarding of a passenger and the weight of the AV after the passengerdisembarks, is the same. In addition, a system according to the presentdisclosure may use such functionality to avoid operating AVs as “zombiecars,” that is, AVs that are traveling without passengers, goods, or apurpose for traveling.

A system in accordance with the present disclosure may also support theentry, collection, and/or use of characteristics and/or parametersrelated to taxes and priority of operations regarding AV activities.Such a system may provide particular functionality supporting AVoperation that, for example, is to be exempt from taxes, and/or to givepriority to AVs that are travelling due to an emergency (e.g.,ambulances, fire service workers, police cars, etc.), those that performspecial services (e.g., pharmacy AVs that transport medicines and/ormedical supplies, AVs that transport the handicapped, etc.), or AVactions related to a response to a catastrophe. In a similar fashion,such a system may enable the application of particular taxes to theoperation of AVs that are considered to be highly polluting vehicles,AVs that are part of a fleet that currently has too many vehicles on theroad(s), or other aspects of operation.

A system according to aspects of the present disclosure may also supportthe entry, collection, and/or use of various characteristics orparameters related to the occupants of the AVs. For example, such asystem may provide functionality that allows for the configuration ofthe cadence, speed, and/or type of advertisements displayed in/on theAV; the selection, operation, and/or the adjustment of applications andservices running on AVs according to the age, mood, and/or preferencesof the occupants of AVs. In addition, such a system may enable thelocation and availability of AVs to be targeted to the habits androutines of people working or living in different regions or areasserved by the AVs. Further, a system as described herein may providefunctionality that permits end-user fees for AV travel to take intoconsideration the urgency that occupants have to reach a specific placeor to move from point A to B.

A system in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure may enablethe end-users to choose, book, and pay for their AV trips through theirpreferred payment options or methods. Such a system may, for example,permit end-user subscription for AV services, using a unified end-userapplication, which may be configured to operate across differentgeographic regions (e.g., villages, towns, cities, provinces, regions,states, countries, etc.) and may support end-user access to multiple AVsand fleet operators. Such a system may be configurable to permitend-users to pay a designated fee for a certain number of travel creditsor travel miles, or to perform a designated or unlimited number of tripsduring a particular period of time (e.g., a day, a month, etc.), but toalso be able to pay per trip taken.

A system in accordance with the present disclosure may also providefunctionality to collect and use the feedback of AV occupants. Such asystem may permit operators of the system to review end-user AV tripsand indications of the cost, duration, and convenience of end-usertrips, and may derive indicators representative ofsatisfaction/reputation for each AV operator, to enable the operators ofAVs to improve their operations and functionality.

A system according to aspects of the present disclosure may also supportthe entry, collection, and/or use of various characteristics orparameters related to the AV transportation services for goods. Such asystem may, for example, enable those using such transportation servicesto designate delivery times/intervals of goods, and the system may, whendetermining fees and/or prices for such services, take such intoconsideration the designated delivery times/intervals for each delivery.In addition, such a system may enable the reservation of delivery slotsthat may be taken into account in the scheduling AVs trips. The system,in regard to scheduling of AVs trips, may also take into considerationthe total amount of goods (and in some instances, riders) to betransported to the same location. A system in accordance with thepresent disclosure may, for example, schedule a trip to move goods to aspecific location only when there is a sufficient (e.g., above alocation threshold) amount of goods destined for the same or a nearbylocation.

A system according to various aspects of the present disclosure maysupport the entry, collection, and/or use of various characteristics orparameters related to AV trips. For example, such a system may enableend-users to combine or give preference to various modes oftransportation (e.g., car, van, bus, train, etc.) when planning an AVtrip to travel from point A to B. The system may permit end-users checkcost and availability of the various modes of transportation, as well aschoosing modes of transportation such as, for example, walking andcycling. Such a system may permit the end-user to set different goals,costs, optimizations, purposes, and/or priorities for each trip. Forexample, the end-user may choose to indicate that the trip is to movepeople, data, and/or luggage; to sense/acquire data; to go to a parkingplace or charging station, or other trip options. The system may permitthe end-user to indicate a preference for trips having at most a certainnumber of stops (e.g., 0, 1, 2, 3, .etc.) that will not affect theirperceived quality of experience (QoE).

A system in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure mayprovide the functionality of a common platform for trip planning andpayment. Such a system may, for example, permit end-users to share costswith other end-users, and permit the system operator to define, forexample, what end-users will pay for each trip or for a set of miles permonth. The system may, for example, be configured to provide incentivesto end-users to not waste any miles/credits that may remain at the endof a month. Further, such a system may enable AVs to trade trips andcosts, based on the amount of resources, data,end-users/occupants/riders, actions, states, and routes that the AVsshare. The system may also permit trips by AVs to be prioritized, basedon a purpose (e.g., transport people, transport goods, transport data,etc.) or according to a context such as, for example, a normal/regulartrip, an urgent trip (e.g., delivering urgent personal, business, and/orgovernment document/data/goods), and/or an emergency trip (e.g.,carrying police, fire service, medical personnel/medicine/medicalsupplies, etc.). The system may provide incentives for end-users and/orsuppliers to pick-up/drop-off a certain number of people and/or goods atthe same origin/place/destination, at the same time, and may, forexample, derive trip fees based on the distance travelled theend-user/goods.

A system according to aspects of the present disclosure may support theentry, collection, and/or use of various characteristics or parametersrelated to trip fees. Such a system may include functionality thatdetermines trip fees based on location or speed of AVs and the routesthat the AVs travel. AV behavior and/or actions may be taken in toaccount by the system, and the system may consider the expected distanceand/or time to arrive at a certain location (e.g., charging station,parking place) in the calculation of trip fees. A system according tothe present disclosure may, for example, use the time of day as a factorinfluencing the number of AVs traveling each road, and/or the number ofAVs to be scheduled at a certain location.

A system according to aspects of the present disclosure may also supportthe entry, collection, and/or use of various characteristics orparameters related to a data network used by the AV. Such a system mayenable an operator/client to map various services and/or applicationsrunning on AVs to the different communication technologies (e.g.,Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) (e.g., IEEE 802.11p), Wi-Fi(e.g., IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ad), cellular (e.g., 4G (LTE), 5G, etc.) ornetwork configurations available. The system may provide functionalitythat permits such mapping to take into account types of access points(APs), support of mobility by the communication technology, a level ofsecurity supported/provided by a communication technology, agreements,etc.).

A system according to aspects of the present disclosure may enable anykind of decision, action, or communication performed within an AV to beevaluated based on the scope/locality of the decision, action, orcommunication. For example, a system such as described herein may, forexample, enable decisions, actions, and/or communications that involveonly the AV; that affect other AVs that are nearby an given AV; and/orthat affect an entire fleet of AVs through, for example, services of orcommunication via the Cloud. Such a system may, for each kind ofdecision, action, and/or communication performed within a supported AV,take into account the level of redundancy or reliability that isrequired, and/or the level of interoperability that is involvedincluding, for example, between vehicles (i.e., V2V); from a vehicle tothe Cloud (i.e., V2I), e.g., mapping info or maps, video streaming,etc.; and from the Cloud to a vehicle (i.e., I2V), e.g., maps or mappinginformation, operating system (OS) updates, etc.).

A system according to various aspects of the present disclosure maysupport the entry, collection, and/or use of various characteristics orparameters related to various levels of network congestion. Suchcongestion may, for example, be in the form of messages or other datatransported over a wireless or wired network. Such a system may supportthe entry, collection, and/or use of various characteristics orparameters related to network congestion such as, for example, thenumber of AVs on roads; the amount of data now flowing or that has beentransported in the past, to/from the Cloud; the number ofmessages/sessions/communications occurring within a geographic region orarea (e.g., village, town, city, county, province, state, etc.) or at aspecific geographic location; bandwidth requests from different AVs; andtrip requests from different end-users, clients, etc. A system inaccordance with various aspects of the present disclosure may take suchcharacteristics or parameters into account whendetermining/planning/scheduling what actions an AV may perform or whichroad an AV may travel.

A system according to aspects of the present disclosure may also supportthe entry, collection, and/or use of various characteristics orparameters related to the data being communicated and/or transported.For example, such a system may classify and/or prioritize the type ofdata to be sensed, transmitted, dropped, and/or shared (e.g., mediacontent, sensor data, advertisements, notifications, end-user data,etc.) based on the requirements or needs of the various stakeholders,fleets, AVs, and/or parties (e.g., operators, clients, end-users).

A system according to the present disclosure may include functionalitythat enables the entire AV ecosystem take into account the origin ofdata being communicated and/or physically transported, both in terms ofthe entity that owns or publishes such data (e.g., a vehicle, end-user,sensor, network, etc.), the location of consumers of such data (e.g.,fleet operators, telecommunications companies, insurance companies,vehicle occupants/riders/end-users, etc.), and the applications and/orservices that request such data.

A system according to the present disclosure may, for example, provideAPIs to permit an end-user and/or client to subscribe to various typesof data services and/or an amount of data transported by a subscriptionservice; to assign credits to end-users and/or clients to enable such touse a particular communication service or communicate a certain amountof data involved in performing a particular action; and/or to monitorand track (e.g., perform accounting on) the amount of data usage of anapplication, an end-user, and/or a client.

Such a system may take into account the urgency of the data, which maybe used by the system to influence decisions such as, for example,whether a particular piece of data is to be sent in real-time, or may becommunicated using delay-tolerant networking, and whether such data isto be given priority over other types of data. Such a system may enablethe entry, collection, and/or use of various policies regarding, forexample, the ordering of data, the caching/storage of data, and/or thedropping of data by AVs or other elements. Example system and methodaspects related to such delay-tolerant networking may be found in U.S.patent application Ser. 15/353,966, filed Nov. 17, 2016, and entitled“Systems and Methods for Delay Tolerant Networking in a Network ofMoving Things, for Example Including a Network of Autonomous Vehicles,”the entire contents of which is hereby incorporated herein by referencefor all purposes.

A system according to various aspects of the present disclosure maysupport the entry, collection, and/or use of various characteristics orparameters related to services provided by AVs. Such a system mayinclude the functionality to enable AVs to give priority to specifictypes of services such as, for example, those services related to safetyincluding, for example, police/law enforcement, fire service,medical/ambulance services (i.e., “first responders”). A systemaccording to the present disclosure may take into account thepreferences and/or needs of those requesting a specific service, or thecontext or environment in which that service is to be applied. A systemas described herein may, for example, enable configuration of AVs anddata network elements appropriately for each service to be provided,taking into consideration an amount of data used by a given service, theamount of processing power that may be involved in running complexfunctions or algorithms associated with provision of a given service,and/or whether high-bandwidth/low-latency links are required by a givenservice to be provided either in centralized or in a distributed way,either at a vehicle (e.g., AV) or a Cloud level.

A system in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosuremay be configured to optimize the operation of a network of autonomousvehicles including, for example, minimizing the amount of time spent byan AV looking for parking places or charging stations; minimizing theamount of time spent waiting for a nearby parking place or a chargingstation; and/or minimizing the number of AVs per road segment or overallroad congestion by AVs. Such a system may also optimize the operation ofa network of AVs by, for example, maximizing the amount of time that anAV is travelling without being empty; and/or minimizing the amount oftime spent transferring a payload (e.g., a person, an item, and/or data)from point A to point B. A system according to the present disclosuremay optimize operation of a network of AVs by, for example, maximizingthe amount of data offloaded by the AV, while minimizing the amount ofdata offloaded at the same location or through the same wireless accesspoint.

Such a system may enable one or more AVs to increase wirelessconnectivity coverage, and may enable configuration of a network of AVsto minimize the data latency and increase network data throughput, whileproviding connectivity to end-user devices. A system according to thepresent disclosure enables an operator to maximize the amount of dataconnectivity provided to the activities in a geographic region (e.g.,village, city, county, province, state, etc.), while maximizing thesafety and security of operation of one or more AVs. Such a systemenables an operator of a network of AVs to maximize the QoE provided byan AV or a fleet of AVs, and to distribute resource usage among all theAVs of a fleet.

There are large numbers of AV services and applications that may involvehigh-bandwidth and low-latency communications. AVs may operate indifferent working modes or states, and therefore may need access torelevant context information, to enable the operations/actions that theAVs will perform in those states. Each AV may require different degreesor levels of wireless connectivity in terms of, for example, thecommunication technologies used (e.g., DSRC, Wi-Fi, cellular, etc.), theamount of network bandwidth needed, and requirements regarding theamount of network latency that the services and/or applications of theAVs are able to tolerate. In addition to transporting people or goods,AVs may also be used to acquire and transport data. Therefore, sometrips and wireless connectivity opportunities may need to be evaluatedwhile keeping in mind not only the transportation of people and/orgoods, but also service and application opportunities that are focusedon the acquisition and transportation of data.

Many of the services and applications running on an AV are primarilyinterested in maximizing their communication network throughput orminimizing their packet latency, independent of the types ofcommunication technologies (e.g., connectivity) or the amount of radiofrequency (RF) spectrum available to the AV. In accordance with variousaspects of the present disclosure, the control of access to the wirelessconnectivity resources of an AV may be selective and context-aware, andis not handled as a simply first come, first served arrangement. Inaccordance with the present disclosure, certain services and/orapplications of an AV may be given higher priority access to wirelessconnectivity resources of the AV such as, for example, services and/orapplications that deal with issues regarding safety/emergency, orservices and/or applications that manage and/or perform updates to theAV software and hardware. In accordance with the present disclosure,each service or application resident on an AV may have a differentscope. For example, in a first example scenario, a service and/orapplication may be performed entirely on a single AV, while in a secondexample scenario, the service and/or application may involve actions ofa group of two or more AVs that are near one another and may involve thehelp of a fixed access point (AP). In a third example scenario, aservice and/or application may involve actions of a system in the Cloud.In accordance with aspects of the present disclosure, the type ofwireless connectivity (e.g., the communication technology such as DSRC,Wi-Fi, cellular, etc.) and the allocation of connectivity resources(e.g., the amount of bandwidth, RF spectrum) to the service orapplication may be tailored according to the service or application. Inaccordance with aspects of the present disclosure, some decisionsregarding connectivity may be done in-advance, to take advantage ofspecific context and connectivity opportunities available at aparticular time.

Aspects of the present disclosure define an intelligent, adaptive, andcontext-aware method and system for connectivity and technologyselection in the AV space, which encompasses a number of features. Forexample, an AV in accordance with various aspects of the presentdisclosure may classify the services/applications running on the AV, mayidentify the communication requirements of those services/applications,and may map those communication requirements to a set of communicationtechnologies or pieces of available RF spectrum. AVs according toaspects of the present disclosure may prioritize some applications overothers by, for example, giving a higher priority to serving thecommunication needs of applications requiring high-capacity,high-throughput, low-latency communication, or to those applicationsthat are location-aware.

An AV in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosure mayreceive triggers from critical applications (e.g., applications orservices related to safety such as medical/fire/law enforcement, etc.)or network nodes that are within communication range of the AV, and mayprovide limited access to connectivity to those non-criticalapplications or specific network nodes. An AV according to the presentdisclosure may, for example, take into account information in what maybe referred to herein as a “profile” of the AV. An “AV profile” may, forexample, characterize actions that an AV may perform when operating inone or more specific states (e.g., charging stage, transporting state,parking state, etc.) based on a specific situation/category/context(e.g., operating as a data courier, collecting data from sensor(s),communicating via RF wireless communication (e.g., providing Wi-Fi(e.g., IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ad) connectivity for nearby network nodes(e.g., AVs) or end-user devices), provide communication/transport inemergency/catastrophe situations, etc.). Providing communication,transportation, and/or data collection support in such situations mayinvolve assigning priorities for use of wireless connectivity/access bydifferent applications based on different profiles (and those profilesmay be driven and/or triggered by different entities, e.g., self on AV,network, factory, context, etc.). Several triggers may be defined tochange AV operation from one state to another, and thereby change thewireless connectivity features that should be made available. An AV inaccordance with various aspects of the present disclosure may constantlymonitor the quality of each service or application that is beingprovided by the AV (e.g., in terms of quality of service (QoS) orquality of end-user experience (QoE)), and may automatically adapt theamount of bandwidth/capacity, the type(s) of communication technologies,and/or the times slots allocated to provide wireless connectivity usedto feed each service or application.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram that illustrates an example architecture of asystem 500 that may reside in an AV operating in a network of movingthings, in accordance with various aspects of the present disclosure.The example system 500 may, for example, share any or allcharacteristics with the other example methods, systems, networks and/ornetwork components 100, 200, 300, 400, and 600, discussed herein (e.g.,MAPs, FAPs, etc.).

At any point in time, the example AV system 500 may support the airinterfaces of any of a number of different communication technologies501, using physical layer interfaces (PHY) 503 (and/or MAC layerinterfaces) that may include, for example, Direct Short RangeCommunication (DSRC) (e.g., IEEE 802.11p), wireless cellular service(e.g., Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Time Division MultipleAccess (TDMA), Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service (UMTS),Global System for Mobile communication (GSM), “3G,” “4G,” Long TermEvolution (LTE), “5G”), Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ad),Ethernet, etc.). The available communication technologies may be used tofulfill different communication requirements of the services and/orapplication running on the AV system 500 including, for example,throughput/bandwidth requirements, delay/latency requirements, datasecurity requirements, and communication range (i.e., physical distance)requirements. The example AV system 500 illustrated in FIG. 5 includes anumber of different functional blocks including a network access control(NAC) block 502 that comprises a physical layer interface (PHY) block503, a network access monitor block 504, and a routing block 505. The AVsystem 500 also comprises a connection manager block 506, and a servicemanager block 507 that communicates with services Service 1 511, Service2 512, and Service n 513. Note that a block may also be referred toherein as a module.

The network access control (NAC) block 502 of FIG. 5 represents thefunctionality of the low-level, system layer that manages and monitorscommunication channel access for each communication technology. The PHYblock 503 of the NAC block 502 may be responsible for translating eachcommunication requirement from the network access monitor 504 tofeatures of a specific wireless communication standard covering acertain wireless communication technology.

The network access monitor block 504 of FIG. 5 represents functionalitythat monitors and selects which configuration is to be applied to eachavailable communication technology. Each communication technology may beconfigured in a specific way, depending on the device in use. Thenetwork access monitor block 504 may interact directly with the PHYblock 503, based on requests issued by the connection manager block 506.A “successful” configuration is a configuration for which the PHY block503 returns a “success” indication, upon the configuration being appliedby the network access monitor block 506. The network access monitorblock 504 may, for example, keep track of the current status (e.g.,channel availability, channel load, signal strength, number of end-userscurrently connected, etc.) of each communication channel of eachcommunication technology. The network access monitor block 504 may alsobe responsible for notifying the routing block 505 about new successfulconfigurations, so that the routing block 505 may act upon the known newconfigurations, and may enable Internet Protocol (IP) routing if needed.For example, in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure, anetwork access monitor (e.g., network access monitor block 504) mayreport to a higher protocol layer that a new neighbor is offeringInternet access via a certain communication technology (e.g., DSRC)using a particular “channel” (e.g., channel 180). The higher protocollayer may, at some future time, request a connection via the Internetaccess capability of the new neighbor. In such a situation, the networkaccess monitor may request that the PHY (e.g., PHY block 503) provide aconfiguration of a device to enable use of the certain communicationtechnology (e.g., DSRC) via the particular channel (e.g., channel 180).If a device capable of employing the certain communication technology(e.g., DSRC) is able to be configured to operate on the particularchannel (e.g., channel 180), the PHY (e.g., PHY block 503) may thenreturn an indication of “success” to the network access monitor (e.g.,network access monitor 504), which then reports to the higher protocollayer that the request was applied successfully.

In accordance with various aspects of the present invention, theconnection manager block 506 may act on requests from the servicemanager block 507, and may make use of communication technologyavailability and current status information reported by network accessmonitor block 504. The connection manager block 506 may signal back tothe service manager block 507, the establishment of a requestedconnection to a specific service. The connection manager block 506 mayhandle the networking part of the system configuration for a specificwireless connection, allowing the system to use a certain communicationtechnology/communication channel. The connection manager block 506 mayalso provide a way for the service manager block 507 to request of theconnection manager block 506 that, for example, a certain fixed accesspoint (FAP) be “blacklisted,” or that availability of a specificcommunication technology be ignored, even if the network access monitorblock 504 has reported that specific communication technology asavailable (e.g., valid).

The service manager block 507 of FIG. 5 may, for example, react to theregistration of a new service profile 508, 509, 510 of a correspondingService 1 511, Service 2 512, or Service n 513, by translating the newservice profile 508, 509, 510 into the form of a request to theconnection manager block 506. Such a request for a Service 511, 512, 513may, for example, identify a specific communication technology that isto be used with the requested service including, for example, the use ofDSRC emergency messages using WAVE Short Message Protocol (WSMP) (e.g.,IEEE std 1609.3), and/or specific communication channel configurationcharacteristics. In addition, a new service may specify theconfiguration for a specific communication technology. Suchconfiguration parameters/information/characteristics may include, by wayof example and not limitation (in the case of DSRC), an operatingchannel (e.g., channel 180), a maximum transmission power (e.g., 23dBm), a data rate (e.g., a relative data rate of 9 Mbps). Additionalexamples of configuration parameters/information/characteristics forDSRC may be found in, for example, IEEE std 1609.4. Configurationparameters/information/characteristics for other communicationtechnologies such as, for example, Wi-Fi (e.g., IEEE802.11a/b/g/n/ac/af) may also include a specification of radio frequencychannel, as well of security methods (e.g., WEP, WPA, WPA2, etc.) Thereare many ways for specifying the type of communication connection aspecific service (511, 512, 513) needs.

In accordance with aspects of the present disclosure, various types ofcommunication connections may include, for example, a delay tolerantconnection where, for example, the service 511, 512, 513 wanting to usethe network is able to wait until a suitable communication is available(e.g., when a stable connection is available, or when network congestionis at a minimum) at some point in the future. This may be possiblebecause the data to be transferred has already been generated and storedat the AV, and may be transferred later when availability of a suitablecommunication connection with acceptable communication conditions hasbeen verified and signaled by the connection manager block 506. Examplesystems and method aspects for delay tolerant network may, for example,be found in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/353,966, filed Nov. 17,2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods for Delay Tolerant Networking ina Network of Moving Things, for Example Including a Network ofAutonomous Vehicles,” the entire contents of which is herebyincorporated herein by reference.

In accordance with aspects of the present disclosure, the various typesof communication connections may also include, for example, a connectionthat provides immediate access. This may be employed where, for example,a specific service (e.g., Service 1 511, Service 2 512, Service n 513)wants a communication connection to a destination, no matter what typeof communication technology will be used by the connection manager. Thismay also be referred to herein as a “don't care” connection, in that thenature of the data to be communicated is such that the servicerequesting the communication connection doesn't care about thecharacteristics (e.g., cost, capacity) of the connection. For example, aservice that monitors the Cloud for new configuration updates orsoftware updates might not be concerned about the type of communicationtechnology used for performing such a monitoring action. Such amonitoring action by an AV might not be delay tolerant, in that theservice may require an immediate answer.

In accordance with aspects of the present disclosure, the various typesof communication connections may include, for example, a need for“strict immediate access” in which the Service 1 511, Service 2 512,and/or Service n 513 that requests that the communication connectsatisfy a number of strict demands regarding a communication connection.Some examples of such demands may include, by way of example and notlimitation, the use of a specific communication technology, or acommunication technology that meets some or all of the requirementsdiscussed herein. Such demands may then be passed to the connectionmanager block 506 that, among other responsibilities, may identify anavailable communication connection that fulfills all of the requirementsof the requesting service. One example of a service that may have a needfor “strict immediate access” may be an “emergency” service thatrequires a stable communication connection, with low latency/delay, butdoes not require a communication path having high throughput/bandwidth.Another example of a service that may have a need for “strict immediateaccess” is a service that has need for access to the Internet, having agoal of a certain limit (i.e., depending on the profile for the service)for a maximum delay/latency and a reasonable throughput, so thatend-users have a good QoE.

There are other additional types of demands that a service may pass tothe service manager block 507 within the profile for the service (e.g.,service profiles 508, 509, 510) including, for example, servicepriority, communication protocol type (e.g., WSMP, IP, all), security(e.g., none, Wireless Equivalent Privacy (WEP), Wi-Fi Protected Access(WPA), WPA2, IPsec, etc.), target identifier (e.g., media access control(MAC) address), location related inputs (e.g., a specific range ofdistance, a geo-fence that defines regions in which to allow or disallowwireless communication, etc.), wireless communication technology (e.g.,one or more of, or all of DSRC, wireless cellular service (e.g., CDMA,TDMA, UMTS, GSM, “3G,” “4G,” LTE, “5G”), Bluetooth, and/or Wi-Fi (IEEE802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ad), and/or response time (e.g., an amount of time tobe permitted with a connection (e.g., a request expiry time)).

A service manager of each AV, such as the service manager block 507 ofFIG. 5, may share the global context of an AV at a particular point intime. An AV global context may include what may be referred to herein asan AV context mode and an AV context state. An AV context mode mayinclude, for example, transportation mode (e.g., when the AV istransporting people and/or goods), charging mode (e.g., when the AV isstopped and is in the process of charging the batteries of the AV),parked mode (e.g., when the AV is stationary in a parking location,waiting on a new job or activity), moving mode (e.g., the AV justfinished its most recent job/activity and does not yet have a newjob/activity, so the AV will seek a parking location and/or the AV isapproaching the starting point for new job/activity (e.g., picking upsomething and/or someone)), and offline/idle mode (e.g., not in anyother mode). An AV context state may include, for example, a contextstate in which the AV acts as an Internet service provider (i.e.,“Internet”), a context state in which the AV performs sensor dataacquisition (i.e., “data sensing”), a context state in which the AV actsas a “middle node” (e.g., extending connectivity to others by routingdata), and a context state in which the AV is handling an emergency(i.e., “emergency”).

In accordance with aspects of the present disclosure, a service managerof each AV system, such as the example service manager block 507 of FIG.5, may use information shared by each neighbor node to decide how totake advantage of each one of them at a certain moment in time. Thecontext monitor block 521 of FIG. 5 is a sub-block of the servicemanager block 507, and may, in accordance with some aspects of thedisclosure, handle some or all of the AV context input coming from thenetwork and from a feedback service 518 of FIG. 5, thus allowing the AVto then control its context mode and context state, as discussed herein.The following is an example of how an AV in accordance with the presentdisclosure may handle the information coming from local neighbors (e.g.,neighbor AVs, neighbor nodes in general, etc.).

In such a scenario, a first service manager (e.g., service manager block507) of a first AV may be requested to provide Internet access, and mayreceive information from a context monitor of two neighbor AVs, wherethe first neighbor AV is parked as a “middle node,” and the secondneighbor AV is transporting people while providing Internet access. Thecontext monitor (e.g., context monitor block 521) of the first neighborAV may act by signaling to the first AV that the service manager (e.g.,service manager 507) should ask the connection manager (e.g., connectionmanager block 506) of the first AV to select the first neighbor AV asits next hop, since the first neighbor AV has a greater probability ofgetting a good backhaul connection to the Internet. Besides localinformation, the feedback service (e.g., feedback service block 518)may, for example, also receive a request from the operator/owner of thefirst AV and the first and second neighbor AVs (e.g., a fleet owner),requesting that the first AV change its context mode to “charging mode.”Upon reception of such request, the feedback service (e.g., feedbackservice block 518) of the first AV may notify the context monitor (e.g.,context monitor block 521) of the first AV, acting accordingly.

As discussed herein, the term “service” may be used to refer to anentity that is willing to use the AV system in order to send datathroughout the network that connects AVs. In accordance with variousaspects of the present disclosure, each service (e.g., Service 1 511,Service 2 512, Service n 513 of FIG. 5) may have a corresponding serviceprofile (e.g., profiles 508, 509, 510, respectively) that may comprise anumber of metadata items/elements that identify/describe the service.One or more example metadata items/elements have already been discussedherein, for example, the “service type.” The profile for a service mayalso, for example, include a metadata item/element that identifies the“protocol type” to be used during communication, which may limit thecommunication technology or the number of communication channelsavailable. WSMP and IP are examples of protocols that have restrictionsfor some standards. For example, WSMP may only be transmitted in itspure form via a DSRC wireless link. Therefore, a service attempting tosend a WSMP message when no DSRC link is available may find that theWSMP message is dropped or is encapsulated in IP frames. In the case ofsuch encapsulation, the connection manager (e.g., connection managerblock 506) may be forced to establish a tunnel for WSMP-IP transferbetween the current network node (e.g., AV) and the target network node.In such a situation, the identity of the target node may also be onemetadata item/element in the service profile, so the service manager maypass that information to the connection manager as part of the request.IP frames may be transmitted via DSRC with some restrictions, which mayvary depending on the regulations of each country. For example, allcurrent standards for DSRC (e.g., 5.9 GHz—IEEE-802.11, IEEE std 1609.x,and the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI)) prohibitthe use of IP frames on the control channel. So, for a system where DSRCis only available on the control channel, it may be necessary to send IPframes over other technologies, such as cellular, being that DSRC is notavailable.

Another example metadata item/element that may be required to be presentin the service profile is “service priority.” A service manager may usethe service priority to set/adjust the bandwidth available for aspecific service, depending on the implementation. For example, ahigh-priority service may get full channel bandwidth, while a lowerpriority service may share channel bandwidth with another lower priorityservice. Additional information about what is referred to as “alternatechannel access” may be found in, for example, IEEE std 1609.4. Asdiscussed herein, an “emergency” service may be handled with the highestpriority compared, for example, to a “data logging” service. For aservice having a service priority of “emergency”, the service managermay make sure that no other service is going to interfere with it, beingthat the “emergency” service has the highest priority. For example, anyservice using the system for low latency communication may be shut offso that the emergency service may use the system at its fullperformance. Even though service priority may be processed as a stronginput to the service manager, a service with a relatively lower servicepriority may ultimately be prioritized higher than a service having arelatively higher service priority, for example if the service manager(e.g., service manager block 507) concludes there are currently noconditions that enable the relatively higher priority service to run.For example, a service that offers Wi-Fi, in-vehicle access to anInternet connection may be idle, if no end-users are currently detectedas accessing that service. In this case, the relatively higher priorityservice may acquire a communication channel as soon as an end-userregisters (e.g., finishes authentication) itself on the Wi-Fi side.

The feedback block 518 of FIG. 5 represents functionality that may beviewed as a “special” service (e.g., feedback block 518 may beconsidered to be “service 0”) that gathers feedback 521, 522, 523 fromlocal services 511, 512, 513, and may manage a local data source 519(e.g., a sensor device such as GNSS/GPS) that feeds the service manager507 with information that may be used for deciding, in close proximityto the connection manager block 506, which communication connection maybe a better choice for a specific service of the AV. The feedback block518 may, for example, have its own service profile, and may communicatevia a communication link 520 with the Cloud 517, to gather remotelylocated historical information stored on a data base at the Cloud 517.Such information may then be fed to the service manager block 507 asinput 519. An example of such a local data source being employed withremotely accessible historical information is the use of local GNSS/GPSinformation coming from a local service (e.g., a GNSS/GPS receiver of anAV) being used together with remotely located, historical information(e.g., at Cloud 517), from which a probability of a successful wirelessconnection of a network node (e.g., the AV) to a fixed AP (not shown) ator near a specific geographic location/area, may be derived. Using suchinformation, the service manager block 507 may decide whether or not torequest the connection manager 506 to “blacklist” the fixed AP.

It should be noted that the discussion herein is provided as an exampleof the use of a service profile, and is not intended to be limiting inany way, as many other, different examples fall within the scope of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating how the functional blocks of anAV system interact with one another during an example flow ofinformation involving an AV system 608 of an autonomous vehicle 603, aneighbor autonomous vehicle 605, a fixed access point 607, and a Cloud617 accessible via the Internet 601, in accordance with various aspectsof the present disclosure. The functional blocks of the AV system 608 ofFIG. 6 may correspond to, for example, similarly named functional blocksof the AV system 500 of FIG. 5, described in detail herein. The examplesystem or network 600 may, for example, share any or all characteristicswith the other example methods, systems, networks and/or networkcomponents 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500, discussed herein.

The illustration of FIG. 6 shows a first network node, the AV system ofthe AV 603, communicatively coupled via a DSRC link 604 to a secondnetwork node, the AV system of AV 605, which is communicatively coupledvia a DSRC link 606 to a third network node, fixed AP 607. The fixed AP607, as shown in FIG. 6, is communicatively coupled to the Internet 601via an Ethernet connection 610. As also shown in FIG. 6, the AV systemsof the AVs 603, 605 may detect one another as neighbors using the DSRClinks 604, 606, 609. The numbers within the ten numbered circles in theillustration of the AV system 608 of FIG. 6 represent the order of anexample sequence of actions/steps performed by the functional blocks ofthe AV system 608, as described in further detail, below.

At action/step 1, the physical layer interface (PHY) block of the AVsystem 608 may provide information about any wireless networks that thePHY has detected to the network access monitor block, thereby making thenetwork access monitor block aware of the neighbor AV 605, the fixed AP607, and the characteristics/conditions of the corresponding wireless(e.g., DSRC) links 604, 609. Such characteristics/conditions mayinclude, for example, information about message/packet latency/delay tothe Internet through both of wireless links 604, 609,throughput/bandwidth available via the wireless links 604, 609 to bothof the neighbor AV 605 and the fixed AP 607, and the maximumcommunication range determined by the communication technology. The PHYblock may also report to the network access monitor block that acellular network connection 602 is available, and that, for example, thecellular network connection 602 has a relatively higher latency and arelative lower throughput than the DSRC wireless links 604, 609.

Next, at action/step 2, the network access monitor block may report tothe connection manager block of the AV system 608 that Internet accessis available via DSRC wireless links 604, 609 via two different neighbornodes (i.e., neighbor AV 605 and fixed AP 607), and that a cellularconnection is available.

Then, at action/step 3, the connection manager may signal the servicemanager of the AV system 608, indicating that a connection to theInternet is possible, both through DSRC wireless links (e.g., wirelesslinks 604, 609) and a cellular network (e.g., cellular network 602).

At action/step 4, a service block that is configured and able to provideInternet access to Wi-Fi end-users inside the AV 603 (“INTERNET”) mayrequest use of a suitable communication connection by passing theservice profile of the “INTERNET” service, to the service manager blockof the AV system 608. The service profile of the “INTERNET” service mayinclude, for example, metadata items/elements representing values forthe maximum acceptable communication link latency/delay and the minimumacceptable communication link throughput/bandwidth, and may include, forexample, metadata items/elements indicating a service type of “strictimmediate access” and a service priority of “high.”

At action/step 5 of the example, another service block (“CONFIG”) may,at or about the same time as action/step 4, attempt to communicate witha resource located in the Cloud 617, in order to check whether a newconfiguration update is available for the AV system 608. The “CONFIG”service block may send a request to the service manager block of the AVsystem 608, requesting a communication connection, and may pass theservice profile of the “CONFIG” service block to the service managerblock. The service profile sent by the “CONFIG” service block may, forexample, include metadata items/elements indicating that the servicetype of the “CONFIG” service block is “don't care” immediate access, andthat the service priority is “low.”

Next, at action/step 6, the feedback service block (“FEEDBACK”) of theAV system 608 may receive historical data from, for example, the Cloud617. The received historical data may, for example, indicate that thequality of wireless communication between a network node (e.g., AVsystem 608 that resides in AV 603) and the fixed AP 607 of FIG. 6 istypically degraded in the specific geographic area at which the AV 603(in which AV system 608 is installed) is currently located. Inaccordance with various aspects of the present disclosure, the feedbackservice block of AV 608 may, for example, confirm the indications of thehistorical data upon detecting loss/degradation of wirelesscommunication with fixed AP 607 using, for example, location informationreceived from a GNSS/GPS service (“GPS”) block. The feedback serviceblock may, for example, pass such information to the service managerblock of AV system 608.

At action/step 7, the service manager block may request the connectionmanager block to ignore (e.g., “blacklist”) the fixed AP 607, and mayestablish a connection for the highest priority service, the Internetprovider service block “INTERNET”, through wireless link 604 to thenetwork node located in neighbor AV 605.

Next, at action/step 8, the connection manager block of AV system 608may request the network access monitor block to perform a channelconfiguration, in order to match the communication link conditions ofthe AV system 608 to those of the AV system of AV 605.

At action/step 9, the network access manager block of AV system 608 maytranslate the request from the connection manager block to perform achannel configuration, into the application of channel configurations tothe DSRC communication technology, by requesting the PHY block of the AVsystem 608 to establish a wireless connection between the network node(e.g., the AV system 608) of AV 603 and the network node 605 (e.g., theAV system of the AV 605).

At action/step 10, the network access monitor block of the AV system 608may request the routing block to route the data traffic generated/comingfrom the “INTERNET” service block to the Internet via the neighboring AV605, since the neighbor AV 605 because the AV 605 has been advertisingto other AVs/network nodes that the AV 605 is providing access to theInternet. Along with a physical channel configuration (e.g., aconfiguration of a communication technology) that an AV (e.g., AV 605)is using, the AV may report the IP configuration that is to be used forrouting purposes over the network. Additional details may be found, forexample, in IEEE std 1609.3. Such information may either be part of aWAVE Service Advertisement (WSA) “routing part”, or another, possibly“vendor-specific frame” that comprises IP information needed for othernetwork entities to connect/route their data traffic through theneighboring AV network node that is advertising Internet access.

In accordance with various aspects of the present disclosure, allfunctional blocks of the above sequence of actions/steps may signal anacknowledgement back to the previous block in the sequence (i.e., “upthe chain”), upon success or error in performing the indicatedaction/step, including signaling by the service manager block to eachaffected service block. Such signaling may be used to indicate whetherthe connection has or has not been successfully established, and whethercommunication according to a particular response time, has or has notbeen established.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating an example autonomous vehicle(AV) based network that supports optimal and adaptive urban scanningusing self-organized fleets of autonomous vehicles (AVs), in accordancewith various aspects of the present disclosure. Shown in FIG. 7 is anautonomous vehicle (AV) based network (or portion there) 700.

The AV network 700 may comprise a Cloud 701 (e.g., similar to the Cloud517 of FIG. 5 and/or the Cloud 617 of FIG. 6), a plurality of autonomousvehicles (AVs) 702, of which two AVs (AV 702 ₁ and AV 702 ₂) are shownby way of example, and one or more fixed access points (FAPs) 703 (e.g.,similar to the fixed access point 607 of FIG. 6), of which one FAP (AP703 ₁) is shown by way of example. Each of the AVs may comprise a systemsubstantially similar to the AV system 500 of FIG. 5, for example, whichmay generally operate in substantially the same manner as describedabove with respect to FIGS. 5 and 6 for example.

The AV network 700 may be configured for optimal and adaptive urbanscanning using self-organized fleets of autonomous vehicles (AVs), inaccordance with the present disclosure. In this regard, variouscharacteristics (e.g., intelligence and autonomy) and resources ofautonomous vehicles make them particularly suited for supporting urbanscanning functions in areas where these vehicles are used. In vehiclesoperated by humans, control over routes the vehicles may traverse istypically too low. For example, with personal vehicles, people maychoose routes based on their knowledge, whereas with publically ownedand operated vehicles (e.g., buses) follow same, pre-selected routes,systematically leaving several streets unattended.

Autonomous vehicles, on the other hand, may be configured to mainlyfocus on transporting people and goods in an efficient way, while alsopossibly being configured to perform other tasks and functions(especially where that does not adversely affect the transportationfunctions). Accordingly, routing decisions may be controlled as toensure that other tasks may also be performed. Thus, within the contextof the present disclosure, given an appropriate framework, routingdecisions may be influenced such that urban scanning demands may be metwithout jeopardizing the routing functions (e.g., route efficiency).Moreover, such framework may also be the basis for cities to incentivizeurban scanning (e.g., lower road taxation for vehicles that are activescanners).

Accordingly, in accordance with the present disclosure, city-scalemobile sensor networks may be provided, being built on top of and/orutilizing fleets of autonomous vehicles (AVs), for obtaining valuabledata, based on sensory information, for city planners, trafficcontrollers, public transportation authorities, tourists and citizensalike. Further, decision and communication frameworks may be provided toenable vehicles to optimize their routes, job assignments, parkingfunctions (e.g., where they park), as well as how data is communicatedtaking into account the scanning needs (e.g., minimum sampling rates andmaximum latency by location). Also, data may be provided that allowsincentivizing AVs to actively scan (e.g., measure traffictransported/scanned by AVs to allow cities providing benefits to AVsthat actively transport and scan data).

In various implementations in accordance with the present disclosure,autonomous vehicles may be configured to fulfill various important rolesthat may be pertinent to urban scanning. For example, autonomousvehicles may work as data couriers, where they receive data fromdifferent sources (e.g., sensors or the like), and are then responsiblefor delivering that data to the Cloud. This allows for sensors to bebuilt with simple and cheap communication technology (e.g., WiFi), todecrease communication costs (no need for cellular) and to increase theamount of data that sensors can send (e.g., high-sampling rates, video,etc.).

In an example use scenario (where AVs are functioning as datacarriers): 1) the vehicles may pass by environmental sensors, 2) thesensors may send their data to the vehicles, 3) the vehicles carry thedata until they can send the data to the Cloud (e.g., until finding afixed access point (FAP) with Internet connection, such as via fiber),and 4) the vehicles send the sensor data to the AP(s) which sends it tothe Cloud for storage/processing.

Another role that the autonomous vehicles may fulfill is urban scanners,whereby the AVs themselves, equipped with sensors and communicationtechnology, may directly obtain sensor information relating to the urbanenvironment. In this case, vehicles have the ability to cover a widearea (only limited by the road infrastructure), decreasing the need forfixed sensors, and can do scans on-demand. For example, a fleet ofvehicles equipped with temperature sensors may be able to scan adetailed map of the local temperature variations in a city and sendassociated data to the Cloud by either using cellular communication orby delivering the data to FAPs.

While functioning in both of the above described roles—that is “datacouriers” and “urban scanners”—the vehicles may be able to get data froma geographic location to the Cloud, and the impact of the vehicles'behavior may be very different with respect to each of these roles. Forexample, lower frequency of vehicles may result in higher latency withrespect to the “data couriers” role, but does not affect samplingfrequency as long as the fixed sensors have sufficient bufferingcapacity. On the other hand, lower frequency of vehicles may result inlower sampling rates and gaps in data with respect to the “urbanscanners” role since a particular location would only be scanned whenvehicles pass by that location.

In various example implementations, data relating to urban scanning maybe stored centrally (e.g., in the Cloud 701). Such data may comprisecurrent state related data (e.g., when sensors and streets werescanned), goal related data (e.g., how frequently sensors/streets shouldbe visited), etc. The data may then be processed (e.g., centrally, suchas in the Cloud 701) to enable making intelligent decisions basedthereon—e.g., proposing actions that allow to bring the current statecloser to the goal. The actions proposed may comprise routes that AVsmay use, such as when the AVs are performing transportation functions(e.g., when the AVs need to go from one place to another), which mayalso be tailored based on scanning needs and/or existing information.

Accordingly, the sensing goals may be achieved without changing thetasks assigned to AVs and without allocating specialized AVs to sensingtasks. Nonetheless, in some instance, the suggested routes (e.g., by theCloud 701) may result in the AVs travelling through sub-optimal paths(regarding travel time), in order to achieve the sensing goals. In thisregard, the degradation in transportation functions may be weighedagainst the sensing requirements, such as based on pre-defined criteria(e.g., minimal acceptable delays, etc.) and/or incentives.

In the example use scenario illustrated in FIG. 7 with reference to theAV network 700, AV 702 ₁ performs scanning within the urban environmentcovered by the AV network 700. For example, AV 702 ₁ may obtain a number(e.g., twelve) geo-located and timestamped samples (s1, . . . , s12)during particular time period (e.g., between times t1 and t2). The scansmay comprise sensory data obtained directly by AV 702 ₁ (e.g., usingintegrated sensors or other sources within the autonomous vehicleitself). Information (e.g., sensory information) obtained during thesescans are then communicated to the Cloud 701, such as viavehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication with AP 703 ₁. In thisregard, communication of the captured information may be performedadaptively, such as when access and/or connectivity to theinfrastructure may become available.

Thus, with reference to the example use scenario shown in FIG. 7, t2 mayrepresent the time when access and/or connectivity to the infrastructuremay become available. Thus, AV 702 ₁ the example use scenario shown inFIG. 7 acts as a data scanner. The AV 702 ₁ may also act as a datacourier—e.g., by receiving sensor data from SENSOR1 704 at t1 anddelivering that data to the Cloud 701 via AP 703 ₁ at t2. The AV 702 ₁may also perform both roles at the same time—that is, it may scan thesurroundings along its path using on-board sensors and also receive andtransport data collected by external, fixed sensors, and may the senddata obtained from both sources to the Cloud 701 when possible—e.g.,when gaining access via an AP 703 ₁ at t2.

Once the Cloud 701 receives the sensory data (e.g., via fiber connectionto AP 703 ₁), the Cloud 701 may perform various handling functionsdirected to the received data (e.g., storage, processing, making itavailable to other systems including graphical user interfaces, etc.).Further, in some instances the Cloud 701 may generate and/or update ascanning-based database 705. In this regard, the database 705 may recordsensory related information—e.g., when each sensor was visited by and/orinteracted with an AV/OBU, when each road (segment) was visited sincethe last communication to the Cloud 701, etc.

The Cloud 701 may utilize received data (and/or data stored in thedatabase 705) to generate useful information relating to urban scanningfunctions and/or the urban environment. For example, the Cloud 701 maycalculate information related to the sensors and/or scanningoperations—e.g., observed sampling rate of each street (how frequently astreet is being sampled), the visiting frequency of each sensor, and thelatency of each scanned sample (e.g., based on a time between a samplebeing collected and arriving to the Cloud 701). The Cloud 701 can thenmatch the observed state of the sensor communication (vehicular) networkand the desired state and determine which streets are in greater need ofbeing visited. The observed state can be enhanced in several ways inorder to make it more accurate and in order to take into accountinformation about active vehicles that are sensing/transporting data anddid not reach an AP yet.

Enhancements include making use of the known vehicle routes, of thevehicle position and of the vehicle capacity to sense/transportinformation (e.g., based on storage capacity, bandwidth) in order tohave a more accurate picture of the current state. The Cloud 701 canalso predict the state of the sensory network using forecastingtechniques over the observed state and previous states of the network(time-series of states) in order to anticipate sensing and datatransportation needs. Further, the Cloud 701 may utilize informationobtained based on scanning operations to generate and/or update routingmaps, road topologies, etc., corresponding to the urban environment. Anexample topology generated based on urban scanning using AVs is shownand described with respect to FIG. 8.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating an example road topologygenerated in an autonomous vehicle (AV) based network that supportsoptimal and adaptive urban scanning using self-organized fleets ofautonomous vehicles (AVs), in accordance with various aspects of thepresent disclosure.

Shown in FIG. 8 is an example road topology 800 generated based on urbanscanning operations. The road topology 800 may correspond to the urbanenvironment covered by AV network 700 of FIG. 7. In this regard, theCloud 701 may generate and/or update the road topology 800 based onscanning (e.g., sensory) information, including currently receivedinformation and/or previously received information (and stored, e.g., inthe database 705) from the autonomous vehicles (e.g., AVs 702 ₁ and 702₂) in the AV network 700.

As shown in FIG. 8, the topology 800 may comprise one or more nodes(e.g., N1, . . . , N4), each of which corresponding to an intersection(of two or more roads), and one or more edges delineated based the nodes(e.g., E_(1,2), E_(2,3), and E_(2,4)), each of which corresponding to aroad (or road segment, between two consecutive intersections). Further,as shown in FIG. 8, the road topology 800 may also sensor infrastructure(e.g., showing SENSOR1 704 and its relation to roads and intersection inthe road topology 800).

As shown in FIG. 8, the topology 800 may comprise one or more nodes(e.g., N1, . . . , N4) and one or more edges (e.g., E_(1,2), E_(2,3),and E_(2,4)). Further, the road topology 800 may also include sensorinfrastructure (e.g., showing SENSOR1 704 and its relation to otherelements in the road topology 800). In this regard, the edges (e.g.,E_(1,2), E_(2,3), and E_(2,4)) represent roads (or road segments), andthe nodes (e.g., N1, . . . , N4) represent intersections between roads(or road segments).

Further, additional information may be associated with at least some ofthe elements in the road topology. For example, each edge may haveassociated therewith road information (e.g., number of lanes, lanesdirection, lanes properties, maximum speed, etc.), state information(e.g., observed/expected/predicted sampling frequency and latency), andsensing requirements (e.g., minimum acceptable sampling frequency,maximum latency allowed). Further, as noted above, topology 800 may alsoinclude sensor infrastructure. Thus, fixed sensors may associated withedges, given that one sensor may be associated to multiple edges as longas communication is guaranteed on all associated edges. Road sensingrequirements may be combined with the sensors requirements associated toeach edge in order to determine the need of every edge of the graphbeing visited.

In some instances, a cost function can then be formulated that combinestravel time with the impact on the state of the sensing network (e.g.,weighted sum of these two criteria) and routes can be found via shortestpath algorithms that minimize the total cost and that can provide morethan one solution to the problem (e.g., k shortest path algorithm).Different weights between the criteria may be used to providealternatives between fast travels and travels that have high impact onsatisfying the sensing requirements of the network.

FIG. 9 is a flow chart illustrating an example process for routecalculation based on optimal and adaptive urban scanning usingself-organized fleets of autonomous vehicles (AVs), in accordance withvarious aspects of the present disclosure.

Shown in FIG. 9 is a chart 900 illustrating example interactions and/oractions in an AV network (e.g., similar to AV network 700 of FIG. 7)when performing route calculation in conjunction with optimal andadaptive urban scanning operations using fleets of autonomous vehicles(AVs) in the network. In this regard, vehicles may request from thecloud route calculation whenever they travel within the area covered bythe AV network (e.g., need to go from A to B). The chart 900 illustratesinteractions between Cloud 901, which may be similar to the Cloud 701 ofFIG. 7, and an autonomous vehicle (or the vehicle's OBU) 902, which maybe similar to AV 702 ₁ when the vehicle is requesting a route In thisregard, the vehicle/OBU 902 may gain access to, and interact with theCloud 901 using a fixed access point (FAP).

As shown in chart 900, this process may be started by the vehicle/OBU902 sending (911) a request route to the Cloud 901, requestingcalculation of a route (or routes) based on the vehicle's position and adestination (and optional waypoints). The Cloud 901 then calculates(913) a set of possible routes that find a compromise between traveltimes and sensing needs (type of data required to sense and samplingrate). To find these routes, a road graph 903 may be used.

In this regard, road graph 903, which may be generated by the Cloud 901based on current and/or historical sensing information, may capture thetopology of the road and sensing infrastructures, and the current stateof the sensing network, as described with respect to FIG. 8. In thisregard, as noted with respect to FIG. 7, road graphs (or topologies) mayinclude such elements as edges (e.g., roads or road segments), nodes(e.g., intersections), and sensor infrastructure (e.g., fixed sensors),and may include information associated with at least some of theelements, as well as information that may be pertinent to routeselections (e.g., cost function that may allow for determining and/orassigning adaptive “costs” to the possible routes).

The calculated routes may then be sent (915) back to the vehicle/OBU902. The vehicle/OBU 902 may then select (917) which of the route(s) touse (with or without human user interaction). After starting to move(using the selected route), the vehicle/OBU 902 may communicate (919) anindication to the Cloud 901 of the selected route. Based on the selectedroute the Cloud 901 may now update (921) the road graph 903—e.g., updateexpected state of the sensing network.

FIG. 10 is a flow chart illustrating example interactions between avehicle and fixed components of an autonomous vehicle (AV) based networkthat supports optimal and adaptive urban scanning using self-organizedfleets of autonomous vehicles (AVs), in accordance with various aspectsof the present disclosure.

Shown in FIG. 10 is a chart 1000 illustrating example interactionsand/or actions in an AV network (e.g., similar to AV network 700 of FIG.7) during urban scanning operations using fleets of autonomous vehicles(AVs) in the network. Specifically, chart 1000 illustrates interactionsbetween Cloud 1001, which may be similar to the Cloud 701 of FIG. 7, andan autonomous vehicle (or vehicle OBU) 1002, which may be similar to AV702 ₁ when the vehicle is requesting a route. In this regard, thevehicle/OBU 1002 may gain access to, and interact with the Cloud 1001using a fixed access point (FAP).

As noted above, autonomous vehicles (e.g., the vehicle/OBU 1002) mayobtain data pertaining to urban scanning—e.g., using the vehicle'ssensors and/or fixed sensors (e.g., SENSOR1 704 in FIG. 7). As shown inchart 1000, this process starts when the vehicle/OBU 1002 comes withinrange of (e.g., passes by) a network element (e.g., fixed access point(FAP)) that provide connectivity to the Cloud 1001. At that point thevehicle/OBU 1002 sends (1011) the data to the Cloud 1001, and waits foran acknowledgment from the Cloud 1001.

The Cloud 1001 handles the data received from the vehicle/OBU 1002. Inthis regard, handling the data may comprise processing and/or storing ina sensor database 1004 (which may be similar to the database 705 of FIG.7 for example). Handling the data may also comprise generating orupdating (1013) road graphs, as described above. Once the data ishandled successfully, the Cloud 1001 may send (1017) an acknowledgementto the vehicle/OBU 1002. Knowing that the data was transmitted (andhandled) successfully allows the vehicle to free storage by discardingthese data.

Further, the vehicle/OBU 1002 can make use of this opportunity toconfirm with the Cloud 1001 if a previously selected route remains agood choice, by sending (1019) a request route check. The Cloud 1001 maythen check (1021) if particular route(s) remain good (or best) choice.In this regard, a selected route may remain good choice if, e.g., thecost of the route has not increased due to new conditions—e.g., a roadincident, because the road was visited by another vehicle, etc. TheCloud 1001 may then send (1023) an indication of the status (e.g., stillgood or not) of the selected route. In this regard, in instances wherethe Cloud 1001 informs the vehicle/OBU 1002 that the route is not a goodchoice anymore, vehicle/OBU 1002 may then decide if it wants to look foralternatives, repeating the route selection process described withrespect to FIG. 9.

In some example implementations, autonomous vehicles may interact withone another during urban scanning operations. In this regard, whenautonomous vehicles that are acting as data couriers and/or scannerscross or pass near one another (e.g., within range of V2Vcommunications), the vehicles may exchange information and/or make localdecisions. For example, the vehicles may determine that, for somereason, they are taking the same route, which would not result inbenefits regarding sensing. In this case, the vehicles may actaccordingly—e.g., negotiate if one of the vehicles would change itsroute, at least one of the vehicles may interact with the Cloud toreport the situation and ask for alternative routes, etc.

The vehicles may also interact based on information received from theCloud. For example, when a vehicle receives from the Cloud (e.g., inresponse to reporting different vehicles having the same route)different route options, that vehicle may interact with vehicles nearbyto locally agree and decide the route it will use (e.g., from theoptions provided by the Cloud) based on the local consensus. In otherwords, the “intelligence” required for handling and/or supporting atleast some of the functions performed in accordance with the presentdisclosure—that is, processing the information and making informeddecisions based thereon—need not be only in the Cloud. Instead, at leastsome of that intelligence may be in the vehicles, with the vehiclesbeing able to share information with each other, and to take informeddecisions by themselves.

Further, if it is predictable that one of the vehicles will cross aFixed Access Point sooner that the other, if there is data with highpriority (low latency requirements) this data can be sent to the vehiclethat will cross an AP sooner. Finally, if a vehicle A is not passingnear an AP but it is passing near another vehicle B that is connected toan AP, the vehicle A can send the data to the AP through B via multi-hopcommunication, which also allows a decrease in latency.

Accordingly, in various implementations in accordance with the presentdisclosure a set of defined interaction steps between elements of a cityinfrastructure, in which AVs are the main focus, may be used to optimizethe operation of AVs as well as the city infrastructure. This maycomprise defining, for each of these implementations, which elements ofthe city infrastructure are involved, how elements interact, what typeof data is used in each interaction, how data is processed in each step,how decisions are taken, and how data is used either for guaranteeing anormal operation or detecting anomalies. Thus, the value of a fleet ofautonomous vehicles may be increased, in accordance with the presentdisclosure, by offering the necessary infrastructure for theircooperation and thus, contributing to the deployment of smart cities orregions.

In accordance with aspects of the present disclosure, once acommunication connection request for the currently highest priorityservice (e.g., in this example, “INTERNET”) has been completed, theservice manager block may then select a pending communication connectionrequest for a service having a service priority that is the next servicepriority lower than that of the service for which a communicationconnection was just established (i.e., the next-highest priorityservice). In the current example, the establishment of a communicationconnection for the configuration update service (“CONFIG”) would be thenext request processed after the request for connection of the highestpriority service (i.e., “INTERNET”). In processing that connectionrequest, the service manager of an AV system (e.g., AV system 608), whenperforming actions/steps 7, 8, 9, and 10 may request that lower blocksin the chain of functional blocks (e.g., the connection manager block,network access monitor block, routing block, and PHY block) connect androute the data traffic coming from the configuration update serviceblock (“CONFIG”) to a cellular network connection, and to not disturbthe established (e.g., DSRC) communication connection of the higherpriority service (“INTERNET”). Note that the example just presented isonly one example of updating, which may be performed in any of a varietyof manners.

For example, additional examples of systems and method for performingsoftware and/or configuration updating are provided in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 15/157,887, filed on May 18, 2016, and entitled“Systems and Methods for Remote Software Update and Distribution in aNetwork of Moving Things;” U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/138,370,filed on Apr. 26, 2016, and titled, “Systems and Methods for RemoteConfiguration Update and Distribution in a Network of Moving Things;”U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/378,269, filed Aug. 23,2016, and entitled “Systems and Methods for Flexible Software Update ina Network of Moving Things;” and U.S. Provisional Patent ApplicationSer. No. 62/376,955, filed Aug. 19, 2016, and entitled “Systems andMethods for Reliable Software Update in a Network of Moving Things;” theentire contents of each of which are hereby incorporated herein byreference.

In summary, various aspects of this disclosure provide communicationnetwork architectures, systems and methods for supporting a network ofmobile nodes, for example comprising a combination of mobile andstationary nodes. As a non-limiting example, various aspects of thisdisclosure provide communication network architectures, systems, andmethods for supporting a dynamically configurable communication networkcomprising a complex array of both static and moving communication nodes(e.g., the Internet of moving things). While the foregoing has beendescribed with reference to certain aspects and examples, it will beunderstood by those skilled in the art that various changes may be madeand equivalents may be substituted without departing from the scope ofthe disclosure. In addition, many modifications may be made to adapt aparticular situation or material to the teachings of the disclosurewithout departing from its scope. Therefore, it is intended that thedisclosure not be limited to the particular example(s) disclosed, butthat the disclosure will include all examples falling within the scopeof the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system configured for supporting urban scanningin an communication network comprising one or more mobile access points(MAPs) and one or more fixed access points (FAPs), wherein said systemis implemented in one mobile access point (MAP) of said one or moremobile access points (MAPs), said system comprising: at least oneprocessing circuit; one or more storage circuits configured for storingof instructions and data; and one or more communication circuitsconfigured for communication of signals for transmission and receptionof data; wherein said one mobile access point (MAP): obtains, duringoperations in an infrastructure utilized by said one or more mobileaccess points (MAPs), sensory information; stores said sensoryinformation, within said one mobile access point (MAP); determines whenaccess to a central entity in said communication network is availablevia at least one fixed access point (FAP), wherein said central entityis configured for managing said infrastructure and/or said communicationnetwork; and when access to said central entity is available,communicate via said at least one fixed access point (FAP), saidobtained sensory information and/or information relating to saidobtained sensory information.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein said onemobile access point (MAP): receives an acknowledgement from said centralentity indicating successful reception of said communicated sensoryinformation and/or information relating to said communicated sensoryinformation; and in response to said acknowledgement, discards ordeletes said stored sensory information.
 3. The system of claim 1,wherein said one mobile access point (MAP) obtains from said centralentity updated information relating to operation of said one mobileaccess point (MAP), said updated information being configured based onsaid provided obtained sensory information and/or information relatingto said obtained sensory information.
 4. The system of claim 3, whereinsaid one mobile access point (MAP), when said updated informationcomprises routing related information, adjusts routing related functionsand/or operations based on said routing related information.
 5. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein said one mobile access point (MAP) comprisesone or more sensors for directly obtaining at least some of said sensoryinformation.
 6. The system of claim 1, wherein said one mobile accesspoint (MAP) obtains at least some of said sensory information from oneor more sensors deployed within or near said infrastructure.
 7. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein said one mobile access point (MAP) comprisesan autonomous vehicle.
 8. A system configured for supporting urbanscanning in an communication network comprising one or more mobileaccess points (MAPs) and one or more fixed access points (FAPs), whereinsaid system is implemented in a central entity in said communicationnetwork, said system comprising: at least one processing circuit; one ormore storage circuits configured for storing of instructions and data;and one or more communication circuits configured for communication ofsignals for transmission and reception of data; wherein: said one orcommunication circuits receive signals from at least one mobile accesspoint (MAP), said signals communicated via at least one fixed accesspoints (FAP); and at least one processing circuit: extract from saidsignals, sensory information relating to infrastructure utilized by saidone or more mobile access points (MAPs), wherein said sensoryinformation is obtained by said at least one mobile access point (MAP);process said sensory information; and set or adjust, based on saidprocessing, information relating to infrastructure and/or operationrelating to said infrastructure.
 9. The system of claim 8, wherein saidone or communication circuits send to said at least one mobile accesspoint (MAP), an acknowledgement indicating successful reception of saidsensory information.
 10. The system of claim 8, wherein said at leastone processing circuit adjusts, based on said processing of said sensoryinformation, parameters relating to or affecting operation of said atleast one mobile access point (MAP).
 11. The system of claim 8, whereinsaid at least one processing circuit generates based on said processingof said sensory information, updated information relating to oraffecting operation of said at least one mobile access point (MAP). 12.The system of claim 11, wherein said one or communication circuits sendsaid updated information to said at least one mobile access point (MAP).13. A method for urban scanning in an communication network comprisingone or more mobile access points (MAPs) and one or more fixed accesspoints (FAPs), said method comprising: obtaining by at least one mobileaccess point (MAP), during operations in an infrastructure utilized bysaid one or more mobile access points (MAPs), sensory information;storing said sensory information within said at least one mobile accesspoint (MAP); determining when access to a central entity in saidcommunication network is available via at least one fixed access point(FAP), wherein said central entity is configured for managing saidinfrastructure and/or said communication network; and when access tosaid central entity is available, providing said obtained sensoryinformation and/or information relating to said obtained sensoryinformation.
 14. The method of claim 13, comprising: processing in saidcentral entity said sensory information; and setting or adjusting, basedon said processing, information relating to infrastructure and/oroperation relating to said infrastructure.
 15. The method of claim 14,wherein said setting or adjusting comprises setting or adjusting adjustsparameters relating to or affecting operation of said at least onemobile access point (MAP).
 16. The method of claim 13, comprising:receiving by at least one mobile access point (MAP), an acknowledgementfrom said central entity indicating successful reception of saidcommunicated sensory information and/or information relating to saidcommunicated sensory information; and in response to saidacknowledgement, discarding said stored sensory information.
 17. Themethod of claim 13, comprising receiving by at least one mobile accesspoint (MAP), from said central entity, updated information relating tooperation of said at least one mobile access point (MAP), wherein saidupdated information is based on said communciated sensory informationand/or information relating to said communicated sensory information.18. The method of claim 17, wherein said updated information comprisesrouting related information.
 19. The method of claim 13, comprisingobtaining at least some of said sensory information directly by said atleast one mobile access point (MAP).
 20. The method of claim 13,comprising obtaining at least some of said sensory information from oneor more sensors deployed within or near said infrastructure.